Wheel of Time Season One: A Full Discussion-Ep. 34 of Intentionally Blank
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- Опубліковано 25 січ 2022
- Brandon and Dan spend too much time discussing a recent food heist before moving onto their discussion about season one of The Wheel of Time.
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Produced by Adam Horne
Sound engineering and editing by Daniel Thompson - Розваги
Wheel of time discussion starts at 14:55
You are a good man. Thank you
Good man
Thank you soooo much.
You have earned ji
Skipping the butter heist is a crime smh my head
My husband says to me often that he's forever grateful that you finished this epic series. However, we couldn't finish the first season of the show. We found ourselves getting too angry and stopping multiple times an episode to rant. We eventually realized that it wasn't good for us, so we stopped watching.
Glad I wasn't alone in this😪
Came back to agree
@CJ Dalley - If it was a different turning of the wheel, Rand wouldn't be Rand. Just like Rand wasn't LTT despite them both being The Dragon Reborn. You can't retell part of it with the same characters. It's either a new turning or it isn't. Plus, I don't care if it's "exactly the same" but having characters that care about the things they're supposed to care about would have been a nice minimum. Changing the characters in a character-driven story is a great way to kill the story.
It was tragic to see screenwriters butcher the source material like they did. I stopped watching it 1/2 trough episode 2. The actors were good, but they could do only so much with a poorly written script that deviated from the story so much it was unrecognizable. I would have been nice to have had the screen writers from HBO House of the Dragon write the script. They would have at the very least adapted the show to the source material.
Same here
The tv was absolutely trash.
It's like noone read the book and they wrote whatever they wanted
The magic system they fucked up
The world they fucked up
The characters they fucked up
Lan would never bathe with Moraine
He also would yell and scream because a fellow warder died
Rand and Egwene were casually fucking?
Perrin had a wife he killed?
God
What garbage
"I don't know why they decided to throw a big wave at that little girl". She knows what she did!
Easy. Bad writing.
Honestly it never really occurred to me that they were aiming the wave specifically at the girl - I assumed it was a generic take out everything within eye sight on the beach to prevent too early a warning of their landing.
@@moriquendi32 that would make sense if there was anything behind the girl. There is nothing. Only hills. It's so, so lazy. The small hint of a city or village would be enough, but nope.
@@rhuanv or a more zoomed out perspective shot that they show the wave reaching far wider than the little cliff beach
They obviously can't see the girl, I mean, come on.
Ogier are Jordan’s version of every other classic fantasy race at once. They feel like elves as Brandon said in that they are like living, dwindling relics of a lost age of magic, with a music-based form of magic; they are unparalleled craftsmen like the dwarves; they are perhaps most obviously slow-paced and long-winded tree-friends like ents; and in the stredding we see their daily lifestyles are extremely reminiscent of hobbits, down to the giant hobbit holes.
Huh, never thought of that.
They also consider humans to be incredibly hasty, again, like ents
And the ogier gardeners are closer to orcs than anything else
@@doublethick5752 too elite and loyal for that.
Maybe Uruk-hai but I think that's still pushing it.
#mindblown
*the show's insistence on the mystery of the Dragon Reborn made us not care about Rand*
especially non book readers.
imagine if LOTR focused on the elves for three films and then we were expected to care about these tiny humans dropping a ring in some lava in the final 20min
You are so right. By trying to create the BS mystery about who is the Dragon, it pulled way too much focus from Rand. Rand is the Hero of the Story. Later, the girls make it all possible, becoming the true heroes. But Rafe has zero undertanding of this. The second part is the ridiculous idea that the Dragon Reborn could be a woman. NO ONE in this world would think that. EVEYONE knows the Dragon is a man. He has to fix the corruption of Saidin, using his Saidin, as it happens, only accomplished with the help of a woman, and her mastery of Saidar. The Dragon Reborn as a woman would be able to do nothing. The STUPID misundertanding of the basic fundamentals of how the magic system and core mythos work is inane!!!!!
Because of this, the non book readers all figured out it was rand specifically because they pulled focus away from him too much and out it on the others.
Feel like they didn't even give the main characters any personality, the amyrlin seat to me felt like the only real person in the whole season.
Something that people don't talk about in regard to the MICE quotient is how dangerous changing threads is in an adaptation.
Turning a character plotline into an inquiry one without doing the work to make a inquiry storyline compelling means that the show got all the downsides of making a drastic change in writing without any of the actual benefit of a compelling mystery.
IMO a better analogy for if LOTR was adapted like WOT - it would've been like spending 2/3 of the movie on developing Gandalf's character and exploring the politics of the White Council and Order of Wizards, and the Fellowship reduced to all but supporting characters, with the mystery of "who is carrying the ring? Can we trust them or are they going to go all Isildur on us?"
(Moiraine explains to Nynaeve what her symptoms would be of learning to channel on your own, without Aes Sedai support, shortly after you see Rand expressing those symptoms.)
That's it. Thanks!
Post-nut relization of being the Dragon Reborn top notch in storytelling...
almost sounds like dan is encouraging people to do a heist so that he can tell us all about it
Almost!
@@NahlaAnwer *wink**wink*
And there are so many basic food items to choose from.
I'd go with croisants personally. The big croisant heist of 2022.
“The problem with Perrin” is that he doesn’t do anything after episode one because Egwene does everything he should be doing.
Well and they neutered him, he was such a good well written character and now he just kind of exists.....not even exists he's a pet now, he wasn't even allowed to save Egwene she saves herself
to be fair Perrin barely does anything in the books either
@MCArt25 hugely disagree. Be does have dry spells as all the characters do but he plays some major roles.
Perin’s constant internal struggle between wielding the black smith’s hammer, which represents creation and peace, and wielding the axe, which represents wrath and destruction, is one of my favorite character arches in the series.
his personality too
So poorly portrayed by the actor unfortunately
@@kirishima2370 In the books, I don’t think Perrin’s struggle and character arc really comes into its own until Book 4.
@@kirishima2370 Is it really the actor's fault or is it the writing? There's a clear difference between those
@@kirishima2370 you can’t blame the actor. If he had an incredible Oscar worthy performance TV Perrin would still be just ok. He can’t be expected to act as someone with no personality
Man your ending suggestion for Egwene and Nynaeve's arc would have capped their story so well. It would have been such a small fix to do.
The last episode left me with such a terrible taste in my mouth. Like this would have fixed half of that very easily.
Ok I just looked it up and this butter heist literally happened in my hometown, just down the road from where I grew up, and THIS is how I find out about it?! In a conversation between Brandon Sanderson and Dan Wells. Apparently this is how I get my local news now... I like it.
Breaking news, delivered by authors lol
Honestly my problem with the wheel of time show, is that if I remove my expectations about it being wheel of time it is just an Okish, generic fantasy show, but the moment I try to view it as a wheel of time show the quality drops and it becomes an bad/okayish show with some wheel of time flavour
Except the unclear, ambiguous motivations of the characters, the contradictions and plot holes they have created. 😕
What is _"Okish"?_
@@Allan_aka_RocKITEman when something is okay ish. Like goodish or badish, or soonish etc etc it's quite the common way of phrasing
@@Dalarish >>> Okay {no pun intended} -- Thanks...👍
I was reading it like 'O-kish' or something. Yeah, I'm old...😊
Same. same.
I need to see Brandon answering questions about the show while hooked up to a lie detector
Is it that hard to believe that he thinks its kind of cool?
@@spuekyblue3382 yes
@@mii6619 why? You know there are real die hards that like the show? I'm one, and my family who never read also liked the show. My brother, another die hard, didn't like it. We can all have different opinions.
As well, Brandon warned fans for years in pre production that it's a different turning of the wheel. It was never going to be a perfect adaptation.
I, too, was hoping that he would trash the show. Because it is objectively a bad show and he knows it.
But he isn't stupid either. No one who is consulting for a TV show is going to destroy their goodwill and reputation by speaking ill of it. At least he spoke about parts that he would have done differently and gave us some productive insights and discussion points.
He's not gonna shit talk Amazon when that's the biggest chance he has to making Mistborn a reality on the screen. But I'm certain he wouldn't want this team to translate his books to the TV/Movie format, even if he really thinks the bastardization is cool. Admittedly, it has cool elements and moments. Having said all that, Brandon was surprisingly critical in a very nice way.
But Perrin's final scene is just him walking out of a room, and then walking back in to find everyone * mostly * dead. It has horror movie logic, which , in my opinion, cuts whatever inner turmoil Perrin is feeling out of the plot. because the audience can't empathize with him. Instead he is wandering around like an idiot.
You assume that these are mistakes. You assume that they have a story to tell. In your video about the whole season you mention the detective and the mistery, but have you considered that things are much more simple? Have you considered that it's all about woman power? Moraine is a strong woman so it's time for her to be the protagonist. Equity. Why fancy titles for men only , women can be Ta'veren also. It doesn't matter how the Borderlands looks as long as Moraine shots down a mansplanation. It doesn't matter that there are no stakes as long as Nynaeve is awesome. Egwene is awesome too. All the boys love her , except the "darkness inside" one and the one Nynaeve has a claim on . All the people moon over her. She is not a character who needs to grow , she is there just to be awesome.
I think you have a skewed way to look at this show. That is why you look at Egwene resurrecting Nynaeve and find it odd. It is not odd. Egwene has conquered death when she was 10, remember? Death is Egwene's bitch. Your confusion will disappear when you will realize that this is not an adaptation but fanfiction.
@@mihaiserafim You're both right
@@mihaiserafim this is reinventing of the wheel where it ended to be square instead circle.
@@shamanoty8115 There are no beginnings nore endings to the Wheel of Time , just corners ;)
@@mihaiserafim You have a mistake (which i can't really blame you, they exaggerated the effects) that Egwene resurrected Nynaeve, but she 'only' healed her, she wasn't dead. About the Perrin bit, sadly it seems covid made them shift his plot for Episodes 7 and 8 and it got nowhere, that last part seemed constructed to be Mat (due to them focusing on the dagger) instead of him facing Padan Fain.
Alternative theories on the butter heist:
1) The theives were told they were stealing "bars of gold".
2) Militant vegans trying to force people to use plant based alternatives.
3) The Kracken is real, someone killed it, and now needs criminal amounts of butter to eat it's fishy goodness.
I love the clear escalation in this comment.
"The Thieves"
"Militant Vegans"
"The Kraken"
Each opening gets more absurd, yet somehow more plausible.
The RCMP are having a bake off
I bet Dan could do a decent forgery of Brandon's signature. The dude must have watched him sign thousands of pages 😂
Who is Dan? (First time viewer)
Some mega fan of this channel is just going to go out and pull the most, absurd over-the-top food heist in history, just for the satisfaction of seeing two pretty famous people react to it.
Dan and Brandon plan the heist, we execute it
Dan's coin should be called "I Am Not A Currency."
"I Am Not A Wealth Asset but a Gambling Crutch" 😹
I was thinking "I Am Not A Crypto Currency" but this works too.
I thought it should be a really punny portmanteau (I'm not clever enough to think of one though)
Really loved Logain and Episode 4 but all the other changes seemed to be far worse than the book counterparts. The whole LTT breaking the world via toxic masculinity thing was incredibly odd
What are you talking about? LTT breaking the world through toxic masculinity? Where?
Okay so opening scene an i Felix age of legends. LTT is talking with the tamerlyn, says he is going to do what no one has done and seal the dark one. He is told it is a bad idea, he does it anyways. Taints the male half… oh sorry this is the show, taints male channel era to go mad.
There is no hint of this being a desperation play, of the war being all but lost and this is one of only a couple Hail Mary plays that might save something.
Instead it is male who and pride that tainted everything. To do what no one else has done…
@@csarmii It was peacetime and he suggested that he wanted to do something that's never been done before, not out of necessity or desperation, but out of arrogance. Latra predicts the consequences exactly, and chides him for pretending he is invincible.
It’s like having a film about the Manhattan Project except they never mention being at war. All we see is Oppenheimer saying “I’m gonna nuke Japan, no one has ever levelled a city so quickly before”.
In the episode. That’s where.
I kind of agree but lowkey that was also kind of Robert Jordan's theme with the world. I don't know if the Dark One ever 'wins' in the sense of breaking the wheel of time and ruling the whole universe forever or whatever, but it does seem that ages can be made 'better' or 'worse' depending on how well the previous Dragon does. It seems like the second age was largely a paradise probably because the Dragon of the first age knocked it out of the park. The third age was far 'tougher' on average people, far more a war-torn dystopia than the second age was, and full of selfish schemers, paranoiacs, and general distrust and anarchy and chaos than the second age was because Lews Therin's victory over the Dark One was a much closer thing; he barely won, and his actions ended up with Saidin being cursed to drive all male channellers mad.
Then we have Rand Al Thor in the third age, and I'm pretty sure we're meant to understand that Rand in the end did a damn good job and is almost certainly going to leave the world in a much better place than Lews Therin did. Will it be as good as the first age's Dragon, and create a utopian paradise like the second age was? Probably not, but at least there's a chance. So I think we're meant to think, where did Rand do better than Lews did? Where did the world of the third age do better than the utopian second age, for that matter? And I think possibly the difference we're meant to notice, without it necessarily being explicitly spelled out to us, is that Rand DID do a better job of working together with others. With his friends, especially Mat and Perrin, certainly, and also with the women in his life. I don't think it was coincidence how many words RJ devoted to gender conflicts, exploring gender roles, gender politics etc. I think Robert Jordan had something he wanted to say about how men and women can and should get together to bring out their best qualities in each other and make partnerships that are greater and not lesser than the sum of their parts. I wouldn't necessarily say Lews Therin was gripped by toxic masculinity, I don't know if that term was even much of a thing in the zeitgeist when RJ was alive and writing, but I do think Robert Jordan was trying to say that Rand Al'thor did a better job because he eventually learned to be more humble, more cooperative, more understanding, and essentially learned the difference between being 'hard' and being strong.
Another data point is the amount of forsaken that went over the Dark One who were highly honoured colleagues of Lews Therin. Of course they were all terrible pieces of shit in the end, but one can't help but notice that among Rand's honored allies, only one, Mazrim Taim, ever went over to the Dark One. Lews Therin had 13 go over. We don't exactly ever get an unbiased look at Lews' life and times, but maybe the dude was a bit of an asshole or at least a pain in the ass to work with if he lost 13 while Rand only lost 1.
Question for Brandon: Would you accept a larger role in the show's decision making if you were offered the chance?
I would have to think about it and ask Harriet what she thinks. I would have said no before, but in experiencing it I think now I'd say yes.
Man I really wish you had .
It’s not as if Harriet has any authority AT ALL.
Red Dragon SUED her to shut her up.
If she had any authority she wouldn’t have permitted Rafe to touch this.
@@Jkirk3279 Unless you know her, or have seen her say she felt that way, or read something where she wrote such, you cannot know. And it is rather presumptuous of people to declare what she would or would not say about the show.
@@Jkirk3279 It's a matter of respect than that, Brandon always seems to ask her advice/opinion on decisions concerning WoT. Calm down
They didn’t go over any prophecy, so knowing rand can channel or the circumstances of his birth don’t really mean anything or make him “the dragon” the only way non book readers know he is the dragon is he said so, it kinda spoils the whole “mystery” angle they were using for the whole season
After handling 44,000 tons of butter, I imagine the thief was a pretty... smooth criminal.
Perhaps slippery criminal would be more apt?
This comment wins the internet for the day!
That was a good joke. I still hate you for it but it’s a good joke
in the books Moraine explains to Egwene after they cross using the taren ferry exactly how the one power works and tells her more each night, rand even eaves drop so we get more info, After shadar logath when everybody is split, Nynaeve tracks and catches up to Lan and Moraine, moraine explains that the reason she could find Egwene was because healing created a bond between the channeler and the patient. she also explains that channelers regardless of sex die from the one power if they don't learn to control it and men of course risk going mad. both of those should have been in the show instead of awkwardly implying through liandrin that men taint the source instead of the male half of the source being tainted.
Yes it would have been so easy to make things more clear. Also with some perspective shots of channeling being visible to who.
In the cave with logain, when the warders come in, there is a small shot where yoh the the backs of the aes sedai for a second, so if they showed channeling from this general perspective and sometimes cut to a male’s perspective where you see nothing it would have been so much easier to understand for new viewers
@@nvwest I'm sorry, but they did show that all over the season. Starting with the very first cold open.
@@csarmii They did, but only if you look for it because you already know it. It was still very confusing for new viewers and I think they could have done a better job at it.
@@nvwest Exactly. I've watched a few reaction videos of people who haven't read the books and the way the Power works was about as clear as mud to them.
Sorry, in the books Moiraine is able to track the three boys with the Tar Valon silver marker; this is how they find Egwene with Perrin and the whitecloaks. They have no way to track her, but she is with Perrin all the time.
The bond you refer to is the one Nynaeve created with Egwene the first time she channeled. That created a vague bond between the two.
The Nynaeve and LAn scene suggestion by Brandosando gave me chills yo. That would have been perfect
The problem with Perrin dealing with his trauma in season 1 is that we don't see him dealing with trauma past the Tinkers. He gets tortured and a half-baked love triangle for the rest of the season.
Don't be dramatic. The love triangle is referenced in 3 total scenes, a total of like four minutes of screen time. Not that I disagree with you about them not showing his trauma, but lets not blame it on the added love triangle.
@@d.rock2224 Oh no, I said the love triangle was half-baked because of how small and inconsequential it was. I was getting ready to say that Perrin had nothing at all after the Tinkers, but decided to be charitable.
@@steveo7265 I misunderstood your point, that's my bad lol. Sorry about that.
THIS WAS A REASONABLE EXCHANGE!!!!
@@Danasax44 😂
We shouldn't require Brandon to interpret all of this for us. The show should stand on its own and I think that is the problem. I appreciate and totally get everything Brandon explains.
I picked up all the stuff Brandon is talking about while I watched the show. You missing it is on you
@@mattrovine9644 aren’t you special. Your comment is narcissistic.
@@squiggs928 I am just repeating my "don't feed the trolls" mantra.
@@squiggs928 You might want to look up the meaning of the word narcissist. If you are going to criticize the show for needing an interpreter then you need to justify that criticism. I don't agree with it since this stuff came across pretty clearly to me, and others. A lot of naysayers make the claim that things didn't come across, but when questioned it becomes clear they were not paying attention to what was being said in the episodes. This type of viewing is done to confirm previous biases.
@@mattrovine9644 As a viewer we are watching someone else hearing information when that information is delivered as dialog. When a character has no reason to understand the dialog because it is fragmented or incomplete we the audience would expect those characters to act in kind or as if, what they did hear, was the whole of it. Instead characters act in differentiation to the character motivations we have been presented for that character. Just because you, the audience, absorbed the presented information within the confines of the show doesn't mean our characters were. And while I recognize that there wasn't time to do all of it, there was time to at least suggest that is was taking place. And, instead, we got side character development that doesn't matter to the stakes of the whole series.
I have to say that I feel really sad about this show. I hated almost every moment of it, and I was prepared to love it regardless how much different it would have been from the books. And I'm not saying that it didn't do some things right, but I really felt that it was very disrespectful to Jordan's original work and I kept feeling it on almost every scene.
I know that you can't talk about some things, but I feel that some choices were very, very disrespectful to R.Jordan's work.
I don't buy the case for a "more grimdark" setting - WoT has really dark imagery in it. It's got thousands of corpses hanging from the walls of conquered cities, it's got murders where the murderer chops the victim in pieces to hide the corpse, skinning alive of people, it's got really-really disturbing uses of compulsion. But it also has a journey - kids from a village in the middle of nowhere go out and find that the world is a huge place with wonderful but also horrible things, with different people who have different ethics and different ways of living and they grow through this journey and change.
Oh, good lord, even writing those lines made me think of all those things and made me feel so sad inside.
bruh it's season 1. calm down
@@jilliandavis1684 If season one did not bring any real enjoyment then why watch more?
@@jilliandavis1684 How is it being season 1 an excuse?
@@jilliandavis1684 yes, it is literally an Entire Season! Over 6 hours of pure content, excluding credits and opening
Compare that to other things like GoT, Black Sails, and it doesn't hold up. It's got a longer run time than the Fellowship of the Ring AND the Two Towers, but covers a tiny fraction of the amount of plot and character of *any* of those
Paula Dean is making her comeback. but she needed all the butter
under rated comment here, folks.
Can respect the diplomatic view about the show from Brandon, but I think it's time to recognize what most of the fanbase has seemingly concluded. It's not that things changed as a result of adaptation that bothers people. It's that the rules of the universe itself have changed as a result of adaptation. That's when it transitions from "adaptation" to "parody".
When Brandon finished the book series, he was, to some degree, doing something similar. He was adapting notes/ideas written by someone else into books written by him, within the context of books that had already been written.
Did the writing style change? Yeah.
Did the pacing change? Yeah.
Did all kinds of other stuff change? Sure, small things really.
But did the universe change? No. No previously set rules were broken. The existing plotlines remained intact. The story was resolved in the way it was intended to, and yet left you wishing there was more, just as it should have.
What we've got from rafe is an unraveled tapestry that not even the wheel can weave back together.
The show has two paths:
1. Continue off the cliff it's headed toward
2. Make a jarring course-correction
Good luck with that...
I thought it was mostly fine, though with serious pacing issues, though in the opposite direction than the books.
@@MCArt25 How could you think it was fine? Genuine question. I don't see how anyone could with how they butcher multiple rules, and even leave out IMPORTANT people for plot progression later on.
44:40
this is the reason why the warder storyline was bad IMO. if you "don't really know" the main characters, then precious runtime shouldn't be given to an insignificant warder. it should be spent developing the main characters. in a vacuum, the warder plotline wasn't bad television. but given the context that the main characters are still underdeveloped going into season 2, it was a bad tradeoff.
Could not agree more. They're justifying the holes about not enough time in the season, covid and budget, yet waste so much time here on something that is easily shown in 1/8 of the time without the drama...left me scratching my head in puzzlement.
The main character in the show is Moiraine. Lan and Nynaeve are secondary main characters. The rest are the supporting cast and characterized as they would appear from Moiraine's viewpoint.
I thought that those episodes were the better episodes in the series, but I agree they didn't add up to anything.
The thing though, is that Warder's death could have been a good set up for Lan being a protective mentor character for Rand.
Instead, they interact very little for the rest of the season.
@@bonzaikitten7991 that is sadly true
Agree with this. The other issue w/the Stepin plot is that he doesn't seem to face any consequences at all for completely screwing their mission and getting everyone 'killed' (before lucky arrival of Nynaeve). They talk about him maybe bonding to another Aes Sedai later-- like dude how can you keep your job after that?! 😂
I came here for wheel of time and listened to five minutes of butter heist jokes before my smoke break finished. No regrets.
Always fast forward ten minutes lol
Hard to agree when most of the changes actually hurt the series, made little sense and turned it into an awful adaptation of a wonderful material.
Yeah, it was more of a bastardization than an adaptation
Yall are whiny, go re read the books
@@jeffw3905 Don't worry; I will. Won't change the fact that this show sucks.
There were small changes I liked, but most of the major changes were poor
@@lucianoarrieta5786 the shit show got me to read the books and quit watching Amazon! Much happier now.
OMG. Rafe absolutely should not film a script before consulting Brandon. All of his changes would have saved this show.
lan fighting with Nynaeve would have been so epic
cannot believe he had NOTHING TO DO IN THE FINALE
I started Wheel of Time during Desert Storm... it was awesome series that reflected Robert's amazing understanding of combat, logistics, geopolitics and engineering. The show is a blight, and absolute stain on the amazing work. Everyone involved should be ashamed.
Brandon’s crypto currency would be named investiture 😅
I would invest in Investiture, (usable on all parts of the cosmere :) )
Nice!
🤣
Ha! It would go... skyward!
But you'd only be able to buy in with precious metals or human souls
I couldn’t disagree more with the opinion that the last episode was written to make the best possible arc for Rand. It actually was the opposite. They literally robbed him of his defining moment for the first book: saving the soldiers at Tarwin’s Gap.
I thought the season was pretty solid until that last episode. That’s the point where the changes they made seemed to stop serving the same narrative that I know. Changes are good and necessary in an adaptation, but these episode 8 changes were a huge blow to the basic DNA of the story.
Rand at the gap is a giant Deus Ex Machina to no purpose. People don't proclaim for him there, they don't know it was him or believe he is the messiah. It's just a random side note to what is ACTAULLY his defining moment. Facing down Ishamael, resisting temptation and standing for the light. Which was in the show.
@@Pixel_Kitsune that is not right at all. It is a moment of catharsis where rand is overflowing with power and uses it for good, even if everything suggests he wil become insane and evil. Its a redeeming thing that gives him some sanity, he is not powerless, he can fight and help until he succumbs. Yes, it had less impact than it could. But it was not a moment for others, it was a moment for rand. It's defining for him.
And why doing the same thing for egwene and nynaeve is suddenly good, then? The real problem is not understanding how to pay off promises. The dragon is promised to be the strongest, not nynaeve, egwene or even rand, but the DRAGON, and that moment shows rand is the dragon, without doubt.
@@rhuanv which is served by him facing Ishamael. The rest is pure deus ex. We haven't even explained traveling at this point.
@@Pixel_Kitsune the only way now to show Rand as more powerful is to have him destroy 10s of thousands easily, since a weaker Nyneve/Egwene (their strength builds through the series) plus a few weaker channelers can now destroy an army of 10000 quite comfortably (only one of em would have burned out if lasso stopped channelling as soon as the Trollocs were dead).
That's my biggest issue - give others Rands moment if you need, but Rand PLUS an Angreal that apparently required a load of channelers sacrifice to use... made a light at Ishamael (and broke cuendiar but all the none readers I've spoken too didn't get that this was significant), while the others somehow destroyed an army of 10k+. Yes he's "the dark one", but as soon as its clear he definitely isn't and is just one of the Forsaken, hindsight just makes everything even worse..
@@MrHulaine A circle of 5 took out 6k to 10k trollocs all packed together where there was no collateral.
If you think Rand mowing down a similar number with targeted weaves that ignore friendlies, protect buildings, etc isn't more impressive not sure what to say.
Idk why they made them all Taveren. The guys don’t want any of this, but everything is forced upon them. What made the women strong characters, was the fact that they chose.
So which of the boys would you make NOT ta'veren, and which of the girls would you make ta'veren?
I think the problem is that there seems to be a perception that in order to make the female characters equal in stature to the male characters they have to have the same abilities of same potential to have the same goals. This is a mistake IMO they should be focusing on the female characters unique strengths not saying they can have the same strengths as male characters
@@Duiker36 I'd get rid of Ta'veren completely. It's just plot armor codified.
@@davidbowles7281 No, it's plot guarantee. It doesn't guarantee a character will survive shit. It guarantees a character will change things before they die or as they die or with their death. It's a guarantee that this is an important character plot wise.
@@kityhawk2000 Isn't the point of being Ta'veren just that you are immensely important to the timeline? It's always bugged me that these women who are just as critical to the fate of the world are arbitrarily deemed not important *enough*, especially since there's already the difference between the men of who's the dragon and two who aren't. The structure of the The Wheel means that every character is technically choosing while being beholden to destiny.
The women already were strong characters, this change feels to me more like giving the proper respect to how important they are than just an empty gesture
I just could not get behind the show. I was super excited because I have been reading this series for over half of my life and felt let down. Every episode may have had the characters and names of the locations, but I just am scared for season 2. I keep trying to look at the show as an adaptation, but I can't get past my confusion and anger about how the show went. Rafe DID NOT do this first season justice at all!
The problem with the show is that it is just Misandrist nonsense.
@@cuylshepherdton7437 it just clicked for me that that's why Perrin has a wife in the show to begin with; he needed to do something terrible (even accidentally), being a man.
@@cuylshepherdton7437
A LOT of shallow readers get that from the books, just like a lot of shallow readers are angry at the "misogyny" expressed in the books. (I've honestly heard "fans" argue both extremes & I do NOT know where they get it from)
The reality is that Jordan constructed a thematically complex work that explores HUGELY important subjects like multiculturalism, bigotry, the nature of evil and how some people embrace it (greed, envy, fear, debauchery, indoctrination) and gender politics.
The misandry in the books is a tool of the story. Men broke the world. But we also see that it is a flawed premise. The injustice of it is made obvious. Hell, we LATER learn that a woman lead the team to create the Bore, and the schemes of a woman prevented it from being sealed, with only the sacrifice of the 100 companions accomplishing the (imperfect) seal and dooming men to madness.
We ALSO see that some blame ALL channellers for the breaking and persecute them all. The parallels to the Reds actions are unavoidable. Perhaps a necessity, but a monstrous one.
With Rafe and co reducing the men to little more than burdens or tools to be used by the female characters, it would seem they fail to understand a major theme of the book. That men and women ARE different, but we compliment one another and are greater as a whole than as separate parts.
They also serve to make the women FAR more bland and giving them FAR less room to grow.
It's the same problem as within the Potter films (albeit dialled up to 11 here)
Rafe obviously has a strong preference for some of the female characters and diminishes the male characters (and the whole) by pushing that agenda. As with Potter, Hermione in the books is a more interesting character.
Doing it in the WoT is outright criminal.
I'd honestly be intrigued if somebody actually catalogued the achievements of the characters through season 1 to see who "did" the most.
@@DmGray thank you. Given the nature of the books like you described, stifling the men in this case actually harms the women too(if we view each as two halves of a whole), and that's outside of the injustice they did to the complexity of the female characters in the show. The misogyny and misandry are both facets of the same problem inherent with the world Jordan created: Men and Women do not understand each other. But it's also established that when they come together they can change the world in a meaningful way. And also, that the journey for Men and Women is so vastly different even before you consider the One Power and its involvement. I am so tired of seeing "Female Empowerment" being equated to reducing Men to tools or elevating women at the expense of men. That's not the point of any of this, and I have a feeling Jordan would be really disappointed to see what his works have turned into on the big screen.
And that's just talking about the gender side of things. There are so many other things wrong with the show vs the books that I feel delivered a really complex and compelling narrative.
At its core, I think Jordan's works are very much a "slow-burn" style of story. Converting that into show format is difficult, but shows like Game of Thrones became the standard. That being said, Game of Thrones was as successful as it was BECAUSE IT STUCK TO THE SOURCE MATERIAL. And when the show diverged from the books, people started getting upset. Lo and behold when we steer away from the things/qualities that made a story great and insert our own "understanding" beyond what the writer(s) establish, people start to lose faith in the adaptations(glaring at you, last 3-4 seasons of Game of Thrones >:( )
Slow-burn stories need slow-burn shows. Details need to be included. Characters need the time to develop otherwise they appear hollow or rushed. Authenticity is paramount to a successful adaptation. No one wanted to watch the "fan reproduction" of Wheel of Time--they wanted a 1-to-1 depiction of book-to-screen. Fuck. Why can't anyone get that? I truly don't care what it costs, if Amazon the great green-holding giant cannot do it, then no one can.
@@apollosungod6673
The thing is, they DON'T need to do a 1 to 1 depiction.
There's PLENTY they can condense or cut. One of the best parts of the show was TOTAL "adaptation" and that was the Darkfriend, Dana.
In the books, the boys meet a cycle of darkfriends to learn that they can be anyone, of any station and that their motives are often not simple to understand. (as you say, WoT is a slow burn and Jordan employs repetitive themes as a narrative tool. The clue is in the name, *wheel*)
Dana condensed this down with a compelling portrayal and some great monologuing.
Nothing of those scenes is from the books, but it DOES convey the same sense of scale and nature as the books. That is the role of great adaptation.
It's definitely not an easy job and even GOOD adaptations will not be "perfect" (look at Jackson's LoTRs trilogy. Excellent adaptation, some flaws and many cuts, including the whole start of the fellowship, which is a great part of the books)
The problem with Amazon's WoT is that it lacks the heart and misses the major themes, despite SOME good notes.
I'm strangely fascinated watching you sign all those inserts.
Imagine every time you talk to your friend, they spend the entire conversation signing autographs.
The final battle in episode 8 was just badly written to the point that I can't even convince myself to say it's my least favorite episode. It's bad writing, I disliked it.
I really disliked the season finale a lot. They overused the death fake-out trope (I counted 5 times in that single episode - Moiraine, Masema, Uno, Loial, and Nynaeve) and they broke the rules for linking as outlined in the Sea Folk and Salidar training arcs. You can't pull too much of the One Power and die from burning out while being linked. There is a buffer like with Angreal. They also broke the 'show don't tell' rule for tv a lot with a bunch of exposition dumps via Moiraine. *EDIT:* Also, In hindsight, I think this show being live-action was a mistake. I think the books would be best represented as a Castlevania-styled anime.
I have a feeling that at least for the "Show don't tell" rule that COVID caused a lot of those problems. Because I feel like the rest of the show they did a good job showing not telling. Im ok with them changing the rules for linking, gives me consequences for doing it, ups the danger. I do agree that they over did the death fake outs for television, hopefully that is something they get over for season 2.
@@d.rock2224 Oh Covid for sure caused problems. They mentioned the big battle in the end of EotW doesn't happen like in the books because of Covid restrictions. Couldn't have large gatherings of people together so no large scale calvary battle for us :( . I think they should have just gone full CGI as best they could and had a large portion happen completely off scene and had everyone go with Rand to the Eye like in the books. Which would have solved another thing that really bothers me - The Horn being under the throne instead of in the Eye like in the books. Fain could have stolen it next season.
@@Elazul2k Idk, im ok with Rand going with just Moiraine, makes sense. Even the end of the books is essentially just Rand after everyone else gets taken out pretty quick. I do wish we would have gotten more from everyone else and I just hope season two is a nice big step up.
@@d.rock2224 Yeah, I hope the quality of the story telling goes up and follows the books a bit more. Yes, I understand tv adaptation - but without the books and book fans that have been following the series for literal decades, this show wouldn't even exist due to lack of interest. Need to appease us too which hasn't been happening enough imo. I also really hope Amazon gives them more episodes. I think 10 episodes a season at least is needed plus make the first episode of each season 2 hours would be nice.
@@Elazul2k agreed
Having 2 entire episodes about world building and characters we will never encounter again is very much like a Robert Jordan story tangent. Making it 25% of your season, severely impacting the character development of the Emond's 5 is just poor judgement. Having Nynaeve "explode like a sun" to quell Logain was amazing, but missing the opportunity to show that Rand is *the* most powerful channeler as the Dragon Reborn by exploding as a true sun and wiping out the trollocs was a huge miss. Having the borderlanders go to defend the wall could've been amazing, but having the channelers wait until they were all dead instead of joining them at the wall was ridiculous.
No matter how much leeway is given in retelling, we've seen 5 inexperienced channelers destroy an army larger (and more fearsome) than 7 trained Aes Sedai could handle. We've had characters with no training in the Power heal death (or something very close). Lan is apparently now a hit it and quit it character.
Having the Horn of Valere under the throne instead of at the Eye (which was where it was in the book) shows an utter lack of foresight and basic understanding. The story of Lan's lost kingdom is staring you in the face, the blight has encroached right up to Fal Dara. Good thing the story happens when it did, or else the Horn would be lost in the middle of the blight in a few more decades.
The show needs to find it's true direction. It's almost bipolar, alternating between fan service, having almost completely incomprehensible scenes for those lacking book knowledge, and a free for all of changing the fundamental laws that Jordan established and Seanchan who use a tsunami to kill a child.
The pattern may spin out a different weave, but Rafe is chucking balefire at it left and right.
And what about damane?!! They look awful with that apples in mouth...+no a'dam...
Exactly my issues with the horn. Why on earth would you have one of the most powerful artifacts in the world kept on a poorly defended fort at the very edge of the blight
Please stop saying oh the show isn't a "straight adaptation" or "one for one adaptation." It was not an adaptation at all, or was a remake - a bad, poorly written remake that was absolutely a tragedy for those of us who wanted an actual adaptation; even knowing it would have been a highly simplified version of the story from the books, at least let us see a version of the story RJ wrote, not a story someone at Amazon wrote using RJ's characters and world.
I started watching this podcast just for Brandon. But Dan is great. Definitely like him a lot more than I was anticipating
Ye I think I'll pick up his books now
Dan is not only an interesting and fun person, but he is also a great writer. Read his books if you haven’t yet.
Perrin's "arc" was really rough. I can see episode 1 trauma IF he has a response to it, but he's kept in "I'm sad" mode for the whole series. No growth, no real reaction. Definitely the biggest letdown of the season.
I don't know, Mat being changed from a prankster and rogue into a sourpuss thief, and his father being turned into an abuser... that's the worst for me.
All the positive male role models were obliterated.
They made a grave error by not letting you play a more significant role in consulting for this TV series.
Perrin dealing with trauma over killing his wife...? What? All he did was simp after Egwene!
Perrin really wants a rebound I guess.
The fact that Dan remembers Lews Therrin as “the guy who broke everything” is a testament to how bad they screwed him over.
By the way Dan, it’s never you. It is always the show’s fault if you are feeling lost or confused, the writing is just as bad for fans. Why can’t Suian’s father go with her? No idea, except that apparently a fish can’t touch the moon.
Yeah, Suian's dad is like don't worry it's only thousands of miles you can go alone by yourself little girl lmao... so bad.
Absolutely right. Can't agree enough. They are kind of apologetic of it. The shows was so 'mysterious' that not even the fans knew what was happening. That is not good, man. That is very, very bad. Some people say 'it could be better' as if that was a compliment. I don't understand.
I also thought this
"The guy who broke everything" is good enough for the begging of the series, that is how most people in the world see him and why he is so feared and despised, more so than any other male channeler.
What I don't like is that they basically confirm it being all his fault in the cold open.
We as the audience are supposed to eventually learn better as we get more info, not reinforce the general perception.
@@squngy0 Yeah I don’t think that with just book one you know anything else really about LTT. He is the Dragon and everything we have heard was Dragon breaks the world, Dragon bad is near on all we would know.
I think the key thing about not seeing the prologue on screen is you can keep it hiden from a book reader that ishamael is baalzamon, you cant in a visual medium.
Ah interesting I hadn’t thought about that.
(Battle in gaeldon could stil have been the first prologue, I heard the idea from others online and this would have been a good start of the show too)
@@nvwest yeah I'd probably have done that too, but I also get not introducing another big charachter there too
I think it’d be pretty easy, there isn’t a rule any where that he has to wear the same outfit. Fire eyes with a hood in one, human looking in the other. As long as they don’t coincide there isn’t a way for someone who knows nothing of the source material to predict it, but it still makes sense and isn’t a cheap gotcha moment
@@creativename6126 I think given the reaction of book fans to *insert literally any change here* its safe to say altering the prologue would have had just as much hate, if not more, than not showing it.
The television audience finds out that the Demon following our protagonists in their dreams is just...some dude.
If that guy were in the prologue, we would probably have some more context.
That show is a desecration of sacred text.
they need it for their butter based magic system
Butter-chromatic Breath
OMG Brandon! Your idea of Lan going back to help Nynaeve brought tears to my eyes. Such a beautiful idea!
I really appreciate everything you said here Brandon. You run a tricky line with the fan base and it's current state. Coming out here and talking about multiple sides of the argument is hard, and it's bound to upset some people, but overall your discussions with Dan were handled very well. I think I speak for the majority when I say I'm glad you're a part of this show, if marginally. Cheers.
Those aren't the sentiments I see about Sanderson in the groups I belong to. Most feel he sold out Jordan's legacy and life's work by not taking a stance. Instead he tries to hard not to piss off Jordan's fan base or Rafe's show. Guarantee you Sanderson would tell a different story if Rafe was given control to put The Stormlight Archive on the screen with the same type of changes that he made with WoT.
@@jasonelyk5738 I never thought about it that way but yeah, he often seems scared to criticize Rafe. I love Sanderson but I think he should be more willing to criticize the show as he would his own properties.
Brandon has made it clear on multiple occasions that these are his genuine opinions and that if he didn't like the show he'd say he didn't like it
I dont think you speak for the majority...
@@d_andrews Then why does he sound like he is carefully stringing his words right down the middle of any issue, and with that performance manages to say nothing that objectively qualifies as an opinion?
Amazon did a shit job.
As far as the wheel of time series goes, I started by thinking of all the things I disagreed with them on and I have now concluded that I disagree with almost everything they said about the series. It was cool to see behind the curtain with authors brainstorming and coming up with a TV series but it was all just loosely based on the wheel of Time books whether they talked about the changes they would make or the actual series. In my opinion they could have stayed true to the source material and done a much better job with the same time and budget restraints.
yep i agree with you
Budget yes, time, no. They cut a lot out to make their version fit into the time they had and it still suffered from over compression. I honestly don't think that the series could be done justice period given the time constraint
@@psychophilosopher3674 happens when you spend an episode and a half on a side character that you kill off and wasn't in the books
@@winningsince1992 if anything the warder thing would've made more sense if it was nearer to the book 4 scene. The one that deals with that issue.
Maybe they wanted us to feel genuine fear about Lan's fate if Moiraine died in the chaos of Rand's battle (pffff some chaos and fighting there was, the whole thing ended up so anticlimactic) but they didn't direct it well enough for that. His dialogue when saying goodbye to Nynaeve should've more heavily hinted at his imminent death if they wanted us to remember Stepin and worry about him. Something like "there's a chance I won't make it to her on time, and in that case, I'm afraid this is farewell"
19:24: "The fandom is very passionate about _The Wheel of Time."_
Definitely! And that's a big part of the problem: so much of what they produced was not _The Wheel of Time._ What we got was a second-rate _Game of Thrones_ knockoff with tons of gratuitous sex and grimdark garbage, by people who didn't understand that for so many of us, the whole point of reading _The Wheel of Time_ was precisely because it provided such a powerful alternative to the grimdark garbage that was so prevalent at the time!
I can't take someone serious who thinks this show had "tons of gratuitous sex" lol.
@@d.rock2224 Well, what do *you* call all the gratuitous sex that was never in the books?
@@masonwheeler6536 my point is non of it is gratuitous. Sex yes, gratuitous sex no. Now gane of thrones is gratuitous sex.
I think what he means is that it’s gratuitous for WoT. It was out of place and forced. It was clearly them trying to be GoT and it just didn’t land.
@@masonwheeler6536 Not everyone is as sexually repressed as RJ.
I never would have become a fan of Brandon if it wasn't for the Wheel of Time. I honestly detested this "adaptation" and was hugely let down by it. It's weird to hear him say that he thought they did a good job, I get trying to being positive but it's hard to defend this. I certainly hope that none of Brandon's IP's get treated like this.
A lot of people are saying that he's trying to weasel around saying things he didn't like because he's trying to protect relationships, which may be true. The way I see it though, Brandon's got a really big audience, and he's bound to have at least one mentally unwell person who would take his criticisms as an excuse to enact a personal vendetta against people Brandon considers friends. It's not something I necessarily agree with, but then again I'm not a celebrity in any capacity. It's clearly something that worries him and that he considers whenever he makes a public statement.
I think ther may be a contractual obligation to not say anything negative about the show. He was hired as a consultant and they ignored almost all of his advice. I can only think that money is more important than his integrity or how much he loved the books.
Definitely sounds like a shill
Brandon i'd like to hear your thoughts about LTT and how they portrayed him in the show. They called him the dragon reborn instead of just dragon, they showed him as an arrogant man that woke up one day and decided to seal the DO, for some reason he wasn't wearing the tamyrlin ring, the society looked like it was flourishing insead of being in war etc.
And another is the absence of saidin/saidar. Do you think that they won't introduce saidin/saidar because we live in a gender fluid era and they think the magic system is too binary? We've spend an entire season and they only mentioned saidin in the old tongue and it was translated as the one power and in the animations that 99% of the people haven't watched.
There's an animated short that explains the difference between Saidin/Saidar.
Lews was definitely done dirty in the show. It seems like they turned him into this arrogant person that thinks he can banish darkness and evil itself from the world when it's not necessary.
Lews' plan in the Age of Legend was a last ditch effort, the only thing they still could do after the Choedan Kal was lost in the war. But the women still refused to help because it was reckless.
Sure, it was reckless, and they were right not to help in hindsight, but at the time, they didn't know touching the Dark One would taint Saidin.
In the show it's like they know full well what the consequences will be, but he still wants to do it for some reason.
Lews sacrificed the Age of Legend with his move, but in doing so gave the world 3000 years they wouldn't have gotten otherwise
@@Adam_okaay animated shorts are not the show. The show must explain this
Also, why did Rand have to surrender to access the power?
@@Adam_okaay 1-read my comment i already mentioned that.
2-animated shorts aren't in the show. The animated shorts also showed the ogiers really differently from the show.
The problem with Rand channeling is that, it still doesn't prove he is the Dragon Reborn. According to the show, the dragon reborn can be a woman as well. That causes all sorts of problems.
Even in the book just being able to channel isn't enough to make someone the Dragon. The fact that in the show a woman can be the Dragon isn't causing a problem. AS LONG... as they made the Dragon a man. Because you still preserve the fear and distrust the world will have of him.
@@d.rock2224 Having the Dragon Reborn possibly be a woman was a big problem with the show, because it destroys one of the biggest premises of the series: the fact that until the end of book 9, it appeared to be an inescapable inevitability that the Dragon Reborn, who was supposed to save the world, would go insane and most likely end up destroying it as well.
This was a ground-level fact that everyone in-world knew going into the start of the story. Remove that and it breaks a massive amount of narrative tension.
It was the lack of attention to details like this that made this such an awful show. Case in point: Moiraine. One of her most defining characteristics is that she's a very short woman, and that she's well aware of this and uses it to consistently get people (including one of the Forsaken!) to underestimate her. And then they cast Rosamund Pike as Moiraine, who is plenty of things but diminutive is not one of them. And we get a character who doesn't feel at all like Moiraine.
The entire series feels like this. It's not _The Wheel of Time._ It's an impostor created by people who didn't understand _The Wheel of Time_ and instead gave us a second-rate _Game of Thrones_ knockoff.
@@masonwheeler6536 get out of here with Moiraine is supposed to be short lol who cares. As for the dragon being a man we still can have the world think he is going to go insane and destroy the world. Plot still intact.
@@d.rock2224 But if the dragon can be a woman, then what really convinces anyone that it is in fact Rand and not one of the other 3? It could still be Egwene or Nynaeve, they can also channel.
So the man & woman thing is actually the problem here. Moiraine should have answered something like "Yeah nice, now you can channel too, we are back to three potential dragons after I was sure it was Egwene, and we still don't know who exactly it is. Next we know Perrin will be channelling too and we're back to all four of you, thank you very much". She shouldn't have been convinced by it and run off with Rand alone.
As a book reader it was totally on point for me and as Brandon said, the thing landed really well.
But when you consider the different context in the show, and discard what you think to know from the books, specifically "the dragon must be a man", which was directly contradicted in the show and doesn't hold true there, then it actually doesn't land at all.
My only explanation is that the writers also had the logic from the books in their heads and missed the logical error, just like I did at the first look.
@@quinndisgleirio also we need to remember that the book was big about unreliable narrator and the show I thibk is doing that too. I don't think anything is for certain. Like just because Moiraine thinks it could be a woman does mean it can actually be a woman. Idk.
Thank you for sharing your insights so thoughtfully and considerately. I wanted to talk a little bit regarding comments on ending to Rand's arc because it is bothering me quite a bit. *post with spoilers*
I have listened to many major WoT commentators (Daniel Greene, Nae'blis, Dusty Wheel) and yourself, and everyone has been saying the same thing, there were issues with EoTW ending, and you like what they did to Rand's arc. My worry is this discussion has become so removed from what the Eye of the World was about that it is hard to rationalize this, and it begins to feel like no expert is able to look at the themes of EoTW- beyond an adventure. I have no insights into what Robert Jordan's ideas wrt to Eye was later in the series, clearly he didn't really want to revisit it much but at the time EoTW was written, it was an excellent example of how men and women worked together to create something that would save humanity. And it did at Tarwin's Gap. This was a beautiful moment, and the backstory is even more beautiful and meaningful - and it remains the core theme of wheel of time. You see this recurring with Bowl of winds, cleansing, callandor.
I will never have any issues with people thinking Eye of the world pacing was off, or some aspects of it were never retained in the series later on. But the pool itself and how it lead to the Tarwin's Gap victory, was a rich storyline, that just shouldn't be so easily dismissed. But no one talks about it, and it makes me sad.
Alternative realities is a theme of wheel of time, but the ultimate realization of Rand's arc is only meaningful after suffering, pain, loss, and a development of dark side. Remove all of it, an arc of realization is very young adult cool moment.
If there is one thing to be said about the show, is it is not recognizing the deeper aspects of wheel of time. The duality is something they are struggling with, but surely if you make this about romantic love so much, it is losing essence of the story.
As much as personal preference can be put to commentaries, I worry how every expert I follow, is now representing the themes of the books as something more leaning to fit the show. It is not to say the theme of love meaning everything is wrong in itself, but this is just a part of it. Perhaps what always stood out to me, was how many different ideas could come together to unite in Wheel of time, and that good exists in many forms.
I suppose all this is to say , I think its ok for showrunners to do what they want, I would like to see experts remove themselves a little bit from personal preferences and objectively study what books are trying to say and develop on it. Because when i hear everyone saying the same thing (probably they are parroting you, Brandon), it becomes tiring.
I have the same question, I thought giving the big thing Rand does to another character and having him leave instead seemed rather thoughtless and less thematically complex than the climax of the novel.
Hearing experts (including ones you mentioned) discuss the show has given me the shocking realization that "experts" actually have very little clue what the Wheel of Time series is actually about. Sanderson is better than most, but even his take is eyebrow-raising. "Egwene and Nynaeve's arc is about deciding whether or not they should join the white tower..." What!?
Everything about the show was fantastic in my opinion. Actors were top notch, visual and stylistic choices were distinct, sound design and music was great. Everything is great except the one part we all assumed was a given - i.e the story.
The easiest demonstration of this, mentioned in multiple comments, is the LTT scene.
Book version: Women wanted to use the Choedan Kal to destroy the Dark one (a masculine destructive course of action) the Men wanted to seal the bore and undo releasing the dark one (a feminine restorative course of action). The lack of unity between the genders breaks the world.
Show version: LTT wants to "seal the dark one away" to end all suffering, and is warned by the female Tamyrlin that he will taint the one power. Men foolishly ignore women and break the world.
In one piece of background lore the books explore: Men and women failing to work in harmony, men and women going against natural masculine and feminine stereotypes, the arrogance of humanity in either a) wanting to obliterate evil or b) wanting to undo mistakes, duality, unity, equality, hubris... book readers will know I'm really just scratching the surface here - not to mention thematic resonance with multiple real world mythologies.
Whereas from the show we get: One dimensional tumblr-esque portrayal of toxic masculinity...
Instead of exploring ideas of harmony, unity, gender strengths and weaknesses we get shallow and tiresome internet politics. WoT is a deeply feminist and progressive work, and these guys unironically making alterations to make RJ's work less progressive is chronically upsetting to me.
How did everybody drop the ball so badly on this? The fact that the show runners, WoT content creators, and even the author of the final 3 books have not understood the importance of these thematic elements within the series is absolutely baffling.
An idea my brother had:
Imagine the scene where they're mourning Stepin. Everything happens the same, except that Lan refuses to lead the mourning. He stands there, stone-faced, brooding, as another warder takes the lead, and you still get to see Moiraine break down, clearly feeling the emotions that Lan refuses to express.
Now isn't that not only a *much* better representation of Al'Lan Mandragoran, but an *infinitely* better and more powerful scene?
For Book Lan yes, your brothers' idea is perfect but clearly Rafe has other ideas for TV show Lan, making him much more empathic and outwardly emotional off the bat, so unfortunately your bros idea does not fit with this version of Lan.
PS for what it's worth, I wish Rafe had done what your brother suggested and we got a Lan closer to the books. That said I am still personally enjoying this alternate version of Lan too.
No it isn't.
I don't think that would fit with book Lan. If he was asked to perform the ceremony, he would do his duty. And I'm not sure it would come across that Moiraine was feeling his inner emotions while he was stony-faced in a visual medium
The season was too short and episode 1 should have been a 2 1/2 hours event. Same goes for the last episode. There was not a strong enough connection to the characters. They jumped from one place to the next with no effort. It just doesn't have enough meat in the storyline to pull these people nor the series together. Just my personal opinion.
I agree. Big potential. Surprisingly mediocre execution. I am eager to see if season 2 improves with less Covid restriction.
@@reillyliner same
I think it really hurt them that Amazon gave them them the restriction of eight one-hour episodes. I have heard people say the show runner gets to choose how many episodes and episode length but thats just not true. I have heard Rafe in an interview ask Amazon for more episode so i think they really wish they had more time.
@@d.rock2224 eight hours is a lot if you know what you are doing. Take arcane for example, the writers did great with less time.
@@asafb1984 And far less story to tell as well as the create freedom to tell whatever story you wanted to tell. Not saying you are wrong, just saying it isn't fair to compare a show like Arcane (which I loved and found amazing in every way) with something like the wheel of Time.
Is anybody wondering why, if the Aes Sedai leader comes from a poor fishing family, Nyneave's mentor was turned away from the tower for being too much like a peasant?
Bad writing
Because a male guard at the tower gates turned her away, .... (am i joking.... ?)
I believe its because she wasnt powerful enough to be an aes sedai. But the whole serie is just rushed and the only charactere is feel they developped a little bit is egwene. I think they should reconsidere the whole serie. Think about what they did wrong and rewrite it and restart it. Give a full 12-15 episode for season 1 cause it was all around bad tbh
@@samuelsavage-gagne9383 nynaeve is stronger than the amyrlin seat
@@bogregz he's talking about naeve's mentor
The WoT show cannot even stand on is own, even less as an adaptation. Where did the story go, not to mention the budget?
The look on Sanderson's face when episode 5 is brought up. Says it all.
I am absolutely passionate about the Wheel of Time, I grew up with this book series. And although I am not a fan of the TV adaptation, I 100% support you and am so - so - so grateful you were the one to finish the series. You were my favorite contemporary fantasy author BEFORE you did the WOT books, and my admiration/respect for your work only improved after it!
Here's a comment, because these two underground authors really do deserve some recognition. Cheers to you both !
Sanderson isn't an underground author by any stretch🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
@@mokshjhaveri4745 you've missed my jest, good sir
@@daisuke133 ah yes I see I have
I get that you have to be diplomatic here but... your name is all over this, dude. This is an adaptation YOU produced. This was your friend's legacy. Now it's whatever Amazon wants to the detriment of the source material, material with which you knew better.
I honestly tried to give the series a shot, but I couldn’t get past that “it’s not a direct translation aspect”.
So I couldn’t get past episode six.
Love all the books, the series just wasn’t for me
There's several ways they could have made a satisfying, if not direct, translation.
They went with maybe 1/2 of one and 1/3 of another
Episode six is probably the worst episode, so I don't blame you.
Episode 8 was the best possible arc for Rand? Gotta disagree there.
Brandon said he's read the scripts for season 2 so we should interpret "best" to mean that Rand's arc is about to get a whole lot worse!
How is Stormlight 5 coming along?
I really have to wonder what Perrin's story was before they had to rewrite the last two episodes. I feel like they had to kind of change things around so that Perrin took over what Mat was supposed to do since obviously Mat just can't be around anymore.
At least I think that he was the one that should have led Lan to Moiraine (which would make so much sense with his powers) instead of the weird "tell" dialogue.
Probably have him fight the Trollocs and go all wolf on them.
Yeah, given how the books play out it's clear matt was supposed to speak to fain, perrin was a victim of whatever happened with barney that's quite clear.
It would make sense to me maybe that he would go off with the Shienaran soldiers to fight trollocs and maybe not be able to fight while there?
His (non)story would have been almost the same, they would just have had him stand behind Egwene when she was in the circle killing Trollocs yelling "You go Girl!"
Regarding the "who's the Dragon" mystery, I don't think it worked for the season. It hamstrung the character development and the final reveal was underwhelming.
In my fan edit, I've downplayed this aspect of the story.
It doesn't work because it doesn't fit into the narrative structure. It probably would have fit better if it was handled more how the book handled it in that the boys had no reason why they had to leave other than the trollocs seemed to be targeting them specifically. The show is mostly told from the perspective that moiraine is the main character and the mystery should have been her interacting with each of them to attempt to figure out who it was. We the viewer would follow along in that journey with her. But sadly the show didn't even attempt any of them. And just drops the dragon thing on everyone and doesn't even have the impact of why it would be bad to be the dragon. all a mess.
@@AndrewTheFrank one of the problems created by the show in Ep 2 (Mat: "One of us the Dragon, the greatest channeler who ever lived") that is then compounded by Ep 6 (Moiraine waygate speech), is that in the show it seems to be factually worse for the EF5 to NOT be the Dragon than to be the Dragon.
This is completely opposite to what the show tries to do through other dialog or monologs. The contradiction simply doesn't fit, or work.
The writers never watched Brandon's classes. Or they really only retain what appears to agree with their wrong methods.
So true.
I'm sure Brandon's classes would help. He knows nothing about show writing, but yes, sure.
The fandom is "passionate" ... LoL.. for Perrin I would have given him someone to protect (a woman and child or Loial) in the final scene and deciding that protecting if more important than the way of the leaf ... For Nyneave all they needed to do is have her screaming in pain instead of passed out and I would have been happy with that scene (for the most part) but I would have loved your proposed ending
Hopefully nothing else gets in the way of him giving feedback again
Ah these are such good changes to the show. Reading the comments here makes me realise how relatively easy some changes could have been made to make the show so much better
Perrin needs to be recast, the current actor is not up to it
The other part that I think is missing for Perrin is that he is already a gentle man. He's just big and stronger than others so he just takes care. When he becomes a wolfbrother and can sense and feel what the other wolves are feeling is what drives him to violence. He literally feels Hopper die and loses himself briefly. Not because he's a berserker. Then the next two books are him fighting against losing his humanity, trying to find a balance between human and wolf.
@@JB-oz3de Yep. He is possibly the most interesting character, his moral struggle is comparable to Rand's battle with sanity. I don't know if it's something they can repair now going forward.
I repeat my point that Rutherford is just not right for the role, he's wooden and (maybe it's not his fault), he wears a gormless look most of them time
odd, if I were Rafe I would've killed to have a resource like Brandon on a show of this size
Well not if u think u are best writer alive...and this Refe dude have a realy high opinion about his skills...
@@savotesic6647 he's clearly blinded by his level of wokeness.
Almost like they are doing it on purpose...
I would love to see Dan write and direct intentionally low budget ads that come on at the end of the 'cast.
I love how they start off their talk show with 14+ minutes of food heist and stock-trading discussion.
These Wheel of Time discussions are fantastic
Wasn't there a big maple syrup heist many years ago? If I were Canada I would be guarding any large quantities of pancakes and waffles.
Oh they actually guard maple syrup here.
This was about 10 years ago. Millions of dollars worth was stolen.
Yes there was. No one really talks about it... don't mess with the Maple Syrup Mafia
I agree the the episode 4 and 5 stuff with Stepin was some of the best stuff of the series but it's also kind of a narrative cul-de-sac, and we spend a lot of time on this when there a plot points that are far more consequential, and characters and places that could have been introduced in that time. So ultimately I think it was well done but not sure if it benefits the show in the long term.
I think the source of most people's frustration with Stepin (self included) is that they gave him an episode and a half of character development, which is more than they gave the 5 main characters put together.
@@svensorensen7693 I agree. I think it was well done and if the same amount of development was given to our main characters I'd have no issues with it. The problem wasn't the quality but how worthwhile it is to invest so much work into a character that you are going to kill off immediately. I also think a better end for him would have been if his loss and pain had driven him into a murderous rage where he tried to kill Logain and Lan was forced to stop him and ultimately had to kill him to save Logain. It would make the power of the anguish that Lan felt at Stepin's funeral feel far more justified and genuine
@@kityhawk2000 Wow, you're right, that would have given a lot more impact to the final scene if Lan "Had to kill him" instead of "Couldn't save him"
Although I guess that would require more time to explain why he shouldn't just let Stepin kill Logain.
@@svensorensen7693 We ended up spending that time with the Aes Sedai explaining it anywise. So by fleshing it out just a bit that dialog serves two purposes (besides only setting up that Leandrin has some suspicious motivations even for a Red) which is what fans wanted. Same thing with Lan and Stepin training together then battling it out and Lan visually demonstrating just how good he is as a fighter and what a catch Moraine found in him.
Thank you finishing the series. Great job! That said, the tv show has 0 to do with the books. I couldn't watch more than 15 mins. Tried 3x. To say rafe did a "good job" is beyond idiotic. He took the names of the characters and made a completely story. Cannot express how pissed I am about what they did in words. Such bs.
Awesome episode, thanks again to my favorite authorcast!
Let's all hope that wheel of time gets a fresh reboot with a new show runner. Rafe is a derp who has no idea what he's doing.
You’re a random UA-cam weirdo and he’s a derp? Try again
@@jeffw3905 Any random UA-cam weirdo could do a better job making the WoT show than Rafe.
There were audio cues that I picked up on that told me Rand was channeling the whole time. If you pay attention you can't see the channeling but you can absolutely hear it.
Channelling is a silent process, it doesn't make any kind of noise, at all.
Omg yes, wow. Brandon the way you described Lan coming back to protect nynaeve instead of running off into the blight, would've be amazing
Wow. This is such a great conversation. Everything said here is spot on.
It’s good to hear you talk about it. Although it doesn’t make me feel better about the show it lets me understand maybe why they tried to do what they did.
Actually Brandon **pushes up glasses** the male Aes Sedai built the waygates for the Ogier.
Applause, sir.
The Ogier grew them, so you're both right
The male aes sedai made the ways themselves. the ogier grew the waygates to travel between the ways and the world.
Building on everyone else. The Male Aes Sedai found the world of the ways and created Talismans (Ter'angreal) that were gifted to the Ogier for Growing the Waygates. The Ogier Used the Talismans (probably with singing, speculative) to grow the waygates and connect them to the rest of the network.
I cannot even fathom how someone could think episode 8 was good, I think Dan is the only person in the entire world who thought that episode was self contained and good. I guess also thinking episode 6 or 7 was good (an opinion I have at least heard) is ridiculous. The dragon reborn reveal was awful I can at least agree with Dan on that, but everything episode 6 and on feels like it was written on set with whatever they had at hand. Its frustrating that we can't get fully unleashed critical comments from Sanderson but its understandable in many ways, the ones you stated (people using your opinions to validate their hate) and also it probably can only negatively impact the show and I can only assume we want the show to be as good as possible.
Still fun to talk about different ways the show could of gone, and it is oddly cathartic to hear the criticisms we do get. I really hope production gets better with experience and as the show notoriety grows we get some more of the good and less of the unimaginably bad.
That's not what Dan said. Dan said that *if* you consider Ep8 to be self-contained, *then* it was good.
For me, episode 8 was ok. The worst was episode 6. Honestly, when I watched it, I expected that the last 2 episodes would be much worse than they turned out to be. One thing I know for sure, this series should have at least 10 episodes.
It can come down to budget and Covid sadly. That's like the Expanse, they wanted 10 episodes but Amazon wouldn't give them the budget so they had to make 6 high-budget episodes instead of 10 low-budget episodes. Everyone on the team, you can find it on various interviews were not happy but money is important for these projects to exist. I imagine in perfect circumstances WoT's 8 episodes would have looked fantastic without COVID messing everything up
@@ASummersetproduction IDK if it would have been fantastic but I think it is very very clear that the budget and COVID and not being able to get people back really hecked it all up for them and what we got was their patch job
Not qualified to comment on the WoT stuff (have not read the books or seen the show, though as ever the podcast is still fun to listen to while I'm tuning out and doing other stuff), but glad to hear Brandon has no plans to really foray into crypto and/or NFTs right now! The video essay on Folding Idea's channel is a great analysis of the downsides of the whole scene but tl;dr a lot of the people who profit off it are already major venture capital holders in it to boost their own currencies/push technology with major security and privacy issues for the sake of profit, and for most other people, it just kinda does end up being a scam in the long run.
(Also, I would go to Al Capone's movie theatre and buy the totally legitimate buttered popcorn.)
I’m especially worried about how much energy is needed to run it all. Heard that they use more energy than whole countries.
I liked the show more and more as it went on, as the more they changed the easier the changes were to accept. But episode 8 was a fucking trainwreck in every regard, from cinematography, to writing, to effects, to wardrobe, etc.
Yes, that was my experience too. By episode 6, I was content to say it's its own thing and a lot of the changes were fine, like skipping Caemlyn and leaning more into the Aes Sedai stuff. But then the Dragon reveal falls flat on its face from the lack of emphasizing Dragonmount and thus whiffing on the entire point of the story of Rand's mother. And episode 8 has so many terrible fake-out deaths and lamely retreads the ground that Rand and Egwene had already trod in the previous episode. He's already given her up. Giving up that in the face of Ba'alzamon's temptation **again** doesn't land.
Wow, I LOVE the alternate idea for Lan/Nynaeve in the final episode that Brandon gives. I would have loved to see that! My biggest let down with Ep8 was Lan not being utilized. Still, the show is incredible and it brought WoT to my attention. Now I'm binging through the books!!
"Rafe has done a good job".
Umm...
Fun talk. I was interested to see the differences between Brandon and Dan to illustrate the differences between book readers and show watchers. I know Dan has read the first book, but contrasting his reaction to someone who is intimately familiar with the whole series . . . works.
I'm a reader and feel like the characters are my old friends. In the cold open scenes that Dan talked about I recognized the scene and the characters right away. I recognized Siuan, as Brandon described, as soon as I saw the fishing gear. I recognized Tigraine and the blood snow scene from the first frame, and it was awesome. Right from the beginning I knew that, though he looked different, we were seeing Lews Therin In a previous age. My son asked who it was and I identified him by name. Soon after, it came up in the dialogue.
As Brandon stated, things landed well, at least for those of us who already knew. It was definitely different for my wife and son who watched it with me. I've kept quiet to them with spoilers, to give the show a chance to add in details as they continue to watch. We'll see what comes. I'm still excited.
After episode 8 I though the winter dragon wasn't a bad adaptation in comparison. For me this season was a complete mess, not only episode 8, the signs were there all along the way (no character development, very inconsistent world building and magic system), which is baffling if you consider the books, whose strongest points are exactly these factors.
The first season of Wheel of Time felt like something made by people who hated the books for people who have never read the books... I expect season 2 to be no different.
Thank You Mr. Sanderson... Your ending mirrored my own.... I'm not crazy..... I have been validated......
I love how honest and open Brandon always is he doesn't hedge areas where he could be implicated negatively
What are you smoking? That isn't Honesty or Openness. He is being Guarded and Anti-opinionated on issues that anyone has come to care about.
@@Camerondes21 I disagree
@@Camerondes21 up front may better word