Wasn't going to watch it, but feck it. First episode has undeniably shown an improvement.
Television The Wheel of Time - BOOKS and TV show thread - SPOILERS ALLOWED
- Thread starter Revan
- Start date
I just finished the third, and I am quite liking it so far. I just think there's no way for any of us book-fans to enjoy it unless we can come to accept that there are going to be some pretty massive departures from the story we're familiar with. They're not hitting on every decision in the season so far, but it's better than the first.
Only watched the first episode so far, but I'll ask again: Are we just supposed to ignore the fact that Loial and Uno were gutted by the Ruby dagger in the finale and are now just strutting around like nothing happened?
I have too much attachment to the books, flaws and all, makes it difficult to be objective. However the state of fantasy TV post the first season, how poor Rings of Power, The Witcher, Shadow and Bone, Willow, etc have been in that period, did prompt a bit of a reassessment. Still think the first season is pretty bad but those other shows have shifted my expectations lower.
I honestly can't remember much that happened in the first season, so it doesn't really matter to me. It's like a clean slate. That said, I guess they were healed? WoT is going to make lots of GoT complaints obsolete, at least the "how are they healed" and "how did they travel so far in that time". GRRM really should have included more magic in his fantasy, the amateur.
I've enjoyed the first 3 episodes. Personally I think it's a marked improvement on the first season.
Looks like it.
Obviously imho but the hardcore Tolkien groupies jumping on Rings of Power I think have really excessively soured many people s opinions on a show I think is a lot better than that. To me Rings of Power isn't even remotely close to some of the amateur hour in parts of the other shows you listed. Wheel of Time is second to me in quality, but with some distance. Again, imho.
I don't know, I think the "her plan was to swim back across the ocean, and then she randomly bumped into Sauron in the middle of her swim" thing was sillier than anything in WoT so far. Season 1 of WoT was technically worse, particularly in CGI (no wonder with how much Rings of Power cost), but even that season felt more genuine than Rings of Power. Though admittedly I never finished the first season of that, I just completely lost interest.
Finished the first three episodes and here are my thoughts:
- production values: light years ahead of season one.
- acting: better than season one.
-writing: absolute and complete garbage. Like steaming pile of shit left in the sun for a week garbage. As a book reader I am still completely confused and lost. The threads make no sense. The writers took a pretty simple and straightforward plot and have turned it into confusing streams of diarrhea flowing down the pant legs of a “plot”. This is barely wheel of time anymore.
- production values: light years ahead of season one.
- acting: better than season one.
-writing: absolute and complete garbage. Like steaming pile of shit left in the sun for a week garbage. As a book reader I am still completely confused and lost. The threads make no sense. The writers took a pretty simple and straightforward plot and have turned it into confusing streams of diarrhea flowing down the pant legs of a “plot”. This is barely wheel of time anymore.
Rings of Power looked very pretty, the production team, design, did an excellent job. The writing however is bottom of the barrel, woeful stuff, Nimic's example is one of many. Baffling to me that they could put that much money and work into the aesthetics but be happy with that quality of writing.
Watched the 2nd ep of WOT, was more like the first season quality
Have they cut Thom from the series?
So not only are they pretty much ignoring the books, they can’t even be bothered remembering what they did themselves in the previous season.
I struggled to make it through the first episode of season 2. My main gripe isn’t the stuff that’s been cut out or changed (which would be unavoidable) but that they fill 80% of each episode with dull, meandering dialogue that goes nowhere, doesn’t advance the plot, and is always filmed with the most basic shot/reverse shot like some cheap soap opera.
If there’s any justice, this abysmal show will be one of the casualties of the actors strike.
No, he's been cast. Casted?
Also I have to say I greatly enjoyed the Seanchan being Americans. The armor was a bit more "are we the baddies" than I anticipated, and the nails were a bit too long (probably to make it actually noticeable on TV), but no biggie.
Listen, if any country was going to get to be associated with a brutal foreign power crossing the seas to conquer it it was going to be us. Make America Seanchan Again!
RJ did describe the Seanchan accent as a Texan drawl, after all. One of them, anyway.
Yeah he was there in Season 1 but didnt see him in the 3 episodes of S02 so far so thought if they have cut his role
i gave the book series a try. I gave up after a few volumes. The "universe" of the series is full of interesting, sometimes new, sometimes even great ideas. Unfortunately, the author is completely incabable of picturing one halfwhat believable single character, let alone relationships between characters. And don't get me started about the female figures....
Okay we won't.
i tug my braid and smooth my skirt, then. ears will remain unboxed.
Boxing ears is a sign of friendship in The Two Rivers.
How far did you get into the series?
Couple of books... I was intrigued by the storyline, but at some point I couldn't stand the quality of writing any more. I did the audible audiobook, the voice of Kate Reading may have contributed..
Blasphemy!
You must have gotten to The Dragon Reborn, surely, because that's one of the two books in the entire series with any amount of braids tugged (edit: and also one of my favourite books, weirdly). Actually, the first few books and the last few barely have any ears boxed either, or skirts smoothed, or even mustaches knuckled. They might have a few sniffs, though.
I agree that it's a lot sometimes, but IMO the narrative about it is a little bit overblown even so. People don't have to like the books, but there are legitimate reasons and then there are meme reasons. The depiction of women one is definitely legitimate, even if I tend to only half agree.
For me it was Jordan's complete and total inability to adequately describe a romantic relationship. I'm not even talking about physical interaction (because
), I'm just talking about two people loving each other in a healthy manner. Total wierdo.He was pretty progressive with pillow friends, I guess? Or horny.For me it was Jordan's complete and total inability to adequately describe a romantic relationship. I'm not even talking about physical interaction (because
For sure! Reading the books when I was younger it took me a minute to get it and then I was like oh...wait....OHHHHH.
For a book that is so centralized around relationships (Mat/Tuon, Perrin/Faile, Nynaeve/Lan, Rand/Half the world, etc.) none of them seem... healthy?
Rand/Min is wholesome.
Actually, you are right on that one. I guess its wholesomeness is why it did not stand out.
Yes, have read a lot of comments calling it unhealthy, not liking their extreme dependence on each other, how Min loses her agency the closer she got to Rand, which has some truth to it, but is perfectly understandable in the context of the story, if not the idealized view of what a modern relationship should be.
Either way, I couldn't finish the 3rd episode, can recognize that there are many things that have improved but the departures are too much for me.
Is it ever explained, what a man of the world, a well travelled warrior, a king no less, would see in a witch who behaves like a very moody 14 year old all the time?For me it was Jordan's complete and total inability to adequately describe a romantic relationship. I'm not even talking about physical interaction (because
but not only that. The 5 main young characters supposedly grew up together in a small village, so literally spent all their life together, then went through a sh**load of events, yet there does not appear to exist any comradery, friendship, level of trust between any of them. There are like 1000 situations between these characeters where i was thinbking "you are supposed to have grown up together, so -instead of holding a grudge for the next 150 pages- go sit down next to the dude, hand him a beer, give him a nudge in the ribs and ask whats eating him" or so. que nada.
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Not to dispute your argument, because it is totally valid, but there is some fecked up shit going on in the heads of all of them that might be contributing to the less than rational decision making:Is it ever explained, what a man of the world, a well travelled warrior, a king no less, would see in a witch who behaves like a very moody 14 year old all the time?
but not only that. The 5 main young characters supposedly grew up together in a small village, so literally spent all their life together, then went through a sh**load of events, yet there does not appear to exist any comradery, friendship, level of trust between any of them. There are like 1000 situations between these characeters where i was thinbking "you are supposed to have grown up together, so -instead of holding a grudge for the next 150 pages- go sit down next to the dude, hand him a beer, give him a nudge in the ribs and ask whats eating him" or so. que nada.
Rand: Literally going mad with power. Hears voices of dead ancestor (self???).
Mat: Stabbed by dagger that makes him lose his mind. Hears voices of dead generals.
Perin: Hears voices of wolves in his head and can smell everyone's emotions. Probably the sanest of the group.
Say what you want, but Jordan loved him a "voices in the head" trope and went to that well a bunchhhhhh.
The Two River's ladies (whose names I can never spell and so they get the ignominy of being grouped together) are both written like moody schoolgirls. Thankfully they grow out of it and become 2 of my favorite characters later in the series.
Mat doesn't hear the voices of dead generals, he remembers being dead generals.
I know, but it didn't fit my narrative so shhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
agreed its interesting. That is what i mean when i say, Jordan has great ideas, i just wish he would have just told them to some person who knew how to write one single credible human being, and let that person do the writing. I mean if i compare it to lotr (blasphemy i know), by the way the four hobbits are described, i have no trouble believing they have a long relationship and a base level of being familiar with each other etc. Everyone of the five in WoT, they interact as if they never knew each other, have no shared past etc. on top of that, when they interact, they do so in a very sterotypical way and not with as lot of imagination involved. I was rimended about a very popular but (imo) very very bad german fantasy series "Die Zwerge" ("the dwarfs"), which was recoomended to me by a colleague once who was a big fan, and is actually the top selling book of its genre over here. It also consists of a large number of volumes but i had to stop listening to it after 30min of audiobook, when the dwarf in the opening scene for the 7th time had "taken a sip of root beer". I mean gimme a break
(yes i'm an asshole)
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Already much more invested than I was during S1. Episode 1 and 2 were good, 3 was great, especially the pre-credits sequence, though I expected Nynaeve to be stuck in the Arches for longer than a single ep. The single proper battle scene felt much weightier than anything from season 1, too. Good start.
Egwene starts out annoying, but when she heads off to study under the Aiel she turns into my favourite character in the entire series. Nynaeve by comparison starts out pretty cool, and gets progressively more annoying. In reply to the comment above about why Lan might have fallen for her, he's visibly impressed and taken aback at her ability to track him in book 1, and that she managed to navigate the challenges the group faced in book 1 on her own while following. It made sense at the beginning, but as Nynaeve gets more annoying I can understand why some might say Lan could do better.
I get many of the criticisms re: RJ's relationships and writing of women, but I can't help pointing out that WoT features women exercising agency, power and influence as much or more than any fictional property I can think of. Which tends to get overlooked due to the meme-ish elements (braid tugging and the like).
Given that his heroines are based on aspects of his wife's personality, and with his wife being a battleaxe born and raised in the American South, it doesn't come as a big surprise that the female characters seem always ready to start a fight. I believe RJ even admitted that he had trouble writing them. There was also an interview, many moons ago, in which he described himself as a rather conservative person, so that might have something to do with the way he approached (or didn't approach) the romantic scenes.
Anyway, RJ was a master storyteller, no one can take that away from him. The characterization leaves a lot to be desired, and his prose sometimes feels nothing more than a tool to get from point A to point B, but he has a great story to tell. Which, in my opinion, is the saddest thing about the series. There's a wealth of material for the show runners to work with, the hardest part should have been the ironing out of the characters and the dialogue. And it's not about being a nerd, a book fanatic etc. The WoT adaptation deserved the LoTR (the original trilogy) treatment: One of utter respect to the source material.
Because it's the great story that makes want to keep on and finish all 14 books despite its obvious weaknesses. It creates a bond with the reader and, personally, made me show a tremendous amount of good faith to the text. For example, it always felt to me that the lack of camaraderie was intentional. We follow young people with great abilities/power as they leave the boundaries of their safe environment and try to fulfil their potential. And as their world becomes bigger, their attachment to their "age of innocence" grows thinner. It's the "curse" of the hero when you see him outside his/her romanticized version. In the end, you become a different person. There's a great scene (i believe in the DR) where Rand asks Matt if Egwene should be trusted and Matt argues that she's too far gone, drawn into the AS ways. It was sad, but also true. Becoming the hero who will save the day often means leaving your old self behind. Maybe this is why many readers warm up to Egwene later on. Nyn, on the other hand, has a tremendous sense of duty toward those closest to her (which i think is what draws Lan to her), but she learns that helping others doesn't mean getting them doing what you want (even if it is the most righteous thing in the world). And, of course, you have Perrin, more reluctant to leave it all behind because he's the first to understand they are down a path that leads to the loss of youthful innocence. The pages where he gets to work as a blacksmith again for a little while are so emotional. He also returns to Two Rivers to realize that nothing will ever be the same. Finally, there's Rand who, for the most part of his journey, absolutely needs to hang onto what he was while he sees his friends slowly drift away from him. I believe it was Steven Erikson who said that, although there are several things he doesn't like about the WoT, no one can deny how significant it was for the genre as a whole and how many doors it opened for aspiring writers. It's a sad state of affairs that it doesn't get the respect it deserves on the screen.
Anyway, RJ was a master storyteller, no one can take that away from him. The characterization leaves a lot to be desired, and his prose sometimes feels nothing more than a tool to get from point A to point B, but he has a great story to tell. Which, in my opinion, is the saddest thing about the series. There's a wealth of material for the show runners to work with, the hardest part should have been the ironing out of the characters and the dialogue. And it's not about being a nerd, a book fanatic etc. The WoT adaptation deserved the LoTR (the original trilogy) treatment: One of utter respect to the source material.
Because it's the great story that makes want to keep on and finish all 14 books despite its obvious weaknesses. It creates a bond with the reader and, personally, made me show a tremendous amount of good faith to the text. For example, it always felt to me that the lack of camaraderie was intentional. We follow young people with great abilities/power as they leave the boundaries of their safe environment and try to fulfil their potential. And as their world becomes bigger, their attachment to their "age of innocence" grows thinner. It's the "curse" of the hero when you see him outside his/her romanticized version. In the end, you become a different person. There's a great scene (i believe in the DR) where Rand asks Matt if Egwene should be trusted and Matt argues that she's too far gone, drawn into the AS ways. It was sad, but also true. Becoming the hero who will save the day often means leaving your old self behind. Maybe this is why many readers warm up to Egwene later on. Nyn, on the other hand, has a tremendous sense of duty toward those closest to her (which i think is what draws Lan to her), but she learns that helping others doesn't mean getting them doing what you want (even if it is the most righteous thing in the world). And, of course, you have Perrin, more reluctant to leave it all behind because he's the first to understand they are down a path that leads to the loss of youthful innocence. The pages where he gets to work as a blacksmith again for a little while are so emotional. He also returns to Two Rivers to realize that nothing will ever be the same. Finally, there's Rand who, for the most part of his journey, absolutely needs to hang onto what he was while he sees his friends slowly drift away from him. I believe it was Steven Erikson who said that, although there are several things he doesn't like about the WoT, no one can deny how significant it was for the genre as a whole and how many doors it opened for aspiring writers. It's a sad state of affairs that it doesn't get the respect it deserves on the screen.