Tolerance for Bad Writing | The Wheel of Time Show
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- Опубліковано 13 жов 2024
- I casually ramble about Amazon's Wheel of Time, and the limit of my tolerance for mistakes and imperfections in the writing of stories.
The Wheel of Time (Amazon Prime)
The Eye of the World (Robert Jordan)
The Great Hunt (Robert Jordan)
The Dragon Reborn (Robert Jordan)
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Meh... not my greatest, but I'm not gonna sweat it. I struggled to get into the mood to actually film this one, as I had recently suffered a major loss of work. But, at least it's something.
I totally understand wanting to step away from something altogether when you've lost so much work in a way that's can't be retrieved. I appreciate you still moving forward with it, and am really enjoying it!
I am sure you have seen the discourse on the new star wars show, and really a lot of the modern star wars movies and shows (not all). But what you mention, you could copy paste into issues in those stories and why so many people seem to not like it, and those who do like it, can come across as disingenuous due to some fundamental issues.
Anyway, love your channel and your thoughts/insights!
Candid outshines polished any day.
Perfection is the enemy of progress. I thought this was a great video.
@@jeremyvanneman8112 This is not THAT video. This is a quick one I thought up and filmed.
I've been calling it the Wheel of Crime .
for me, it's "the Waste of Time"
@@iogssothoth666 Waste of Prime
I've called it the Wheel of Prime... and Wheel of Woke.
@@SirBlaze75 haha! all of these are really good.
The first book is, what, 700 pages? They made 8 1 hour long episodes. Average page length for 1 hour of TV is something like 60 pages. Cut out the frills and you could have adapted the book EXACTLY as written without issue.
I find it funny that the major issues you bring up, Dragon mystery, Moiraine power situation, Perrin's wife, Egwenes shenanigan's etc. are all things that were changed for the show.
It's almost like Robert Jordan knew how to write a story and you need talented people to make drastic changes to that.
Hmmmm..... what an odd oberservation! 😋🤭
Almost 😂
That's not actually true, as she mentions that her first major turn off was the Nynaeve/Lan relationship, which is an example of why not adapting the original story for the series format is usually a bad idea. In the books, most romances actually make no sense, but Nynaeve's might be the worst (especially since it doesn't have the Ta'veren Deus ex Machina explanation as for Rand or Perrin). And I could actually understand slightly better that those two were falling in love in the show that I did back when reading the books.
@metube6482 nice of you to "um, actually" me for her. Even though she replied to my comment.
@@IamVendel She did reply, and still it's good to consider that NOT changing the weird way Nynaeve's romance is built in the book was probably a mistake as well. For that matter, it's a relief that they seem to have dropped the weirdest parts of Rand's love interests (but I let's avoid any chance of spoiler for future seasons).
There's definitely a point of no return. Once you reach that, even the small issues piss you off.
Exactly. I think it's because you just stop believing the world and characters. Then, it's just over.
Pretty much everything about the writing of the show is unforgivable. As a huge fan of the books that’s why I’m watching this instead of watching the show.
@@mmcfeat haha! Folks like you are one of the reasons I summarize every scene and repeat a lot of the dialogue. That way. You don't have to have seen the show to know what I'm talking about.
I walk in the same shoes :) I made it through the whole first season but it was painful.
I started with so much excitement - indeed I was moved to tears of joy in that first episode seeing Lan and Moiraine fighting the Trollocs, it was so wonderful to see what I had read decades before come to life on the screen and actually be a pretty good imagining of it.
But it didn't take long to realise ... oh, it's yet another vehicle for the Message ... :sigh:
@dallassukerkin6878 haha. Maybe we could have a funeral for the show when it gets cancelled.
I liked that opening fight, too.
@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS :grins: Aye. Such a shame that the acting talent has not been better utilised and the great source material has been so disrespected.
Now, admittedly, I think Robert's illness did something to him mentally as in the later books there are some repeated tropes that are a bit uncomfortable.
If they get that far in the show I have no idea what they will do with them - probably best just not to include them ... far too many Aes Sedai getting ... ahem .. corporal punishment.
I am still on the last book and have been for a decade. My late wife bought me a special edition of it at her last Christmas and it took me until a couple of years ago to even open it. I am about half way through and have stalled. Picking it up and reading it reminds me of her and that still hurts even now but also, after such a long tale, I cannot see how it can end in a satisfactory way.
Yeah, I think it was after episode 3 that I decided they really needed to earn my trust, and they never did.
Rafe Judkins deliberately bastardized WoT. He had no respect to source material from the beginning, and had no intention to adapt it faithfully. He said in the interview, that the way he deals with fan criticism is "make another of their favorite characters gay", and in yet another interview he explained that he "wanted to make the bad guys lovable". Hacks like him that have no respect for works of others and lack any talent to produce their own are a disgrace to the profession.
@john_squatson 🤦🏻♀️ I don't understand this at all. Why adapt something you want to change? It's just ASKING for major criticism.
@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS producers don't hire good writers, they are hiring people who check the correct boxes and will push the approved message (this is how we end up with LITERAL NOBODIES, that have ZERO WRITING CREDITS writing scripts for hundred million dollars tv series, i.e. Rangs of Power, Acolyte, Echo, etc.) Naturally, those "writers" they hire don't care about or understand the source material, and don't respect it, because they presume they can make it better by injecting modern day politics into it. This is sheer hubris.
Just like the Acolyte.
No, the Jedi aren’t police and ACAB is a goofy thing to try and apply to them.
Middle management is destroying IPs by assigning stories to folks who shouldn’t have them.
@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS More fundamentally, the economic value of an intellectual property is surely constituted in its audience. The reason one IP sells for more than another is that its fan-base is larger, and having rights to the IP means having rights to its fan-base. So ...
Why pay $TEXAS for an IP and its built-in audience when you intend to change the material, especially in ways that _alienate_ that audience? Adhering to the source material is just by default good business practice.
@PedanticTwit I really wish someone would explain this to people in Hollywood. One Piece should have showed folks the potential of a well-done adaptation of a beloved IP. They had to change a lot, but they honored the source material in every possible respect.
Yet again you've proven you, an independant person on UA-cam, have put more thought and effort into your review of this series than the showrunners have put into crafting the story that was before them.
@@Alustar22 haha! I do have to wonder how many edits the scripts went through, especially that first season. It was just horrendous!
Yes
Thought of another one.. When they give a person a power/ability/trait and conveniently forget they gave it to that character until it's absolutely needed sometime later to drive the story forward (usually when it would have been incredibly useful throughout the story).
@xYalahx hahaha! Yes! Nynaeve's channeling has suddenly vanished, now. I wonder if they will have her miraculously able to Channel again at the start of S3, or if they will actually have her figure out why it's happening.
My main issues are listed below. If they're not too bad, none of them alone will make me quit a show and, if all other aspects are very good, I'm willing to overlook problems, but they've been more and more frequent in recent years.
1. When writers will set rules for their universe and or characters and then beak, ignore, and or change them later. Star Wars comes to mind. "There have been no Sith in a thousand years." ---> *Makes a show with Sith 100 years ago.* "Man, this explosion would be really cool and we could fake people out" ---> *invents flying through space without a spacesuit.* Wheel of Prime example: "This is the most evil dagger ever." --> Stabs several important characters with it --> they're fine next season.
2. When writers of adaptations make a change that fundamentally and irrevocably changes a character for what amounts to shock value. Wheel of Prime and Perrin's Wife comes to mind.
3. When writers are logically inconsistent - Especially with a character's motivations, personality, or thinking. One episode they're good, and they next their scheming and untrustworthy. Later on they regret the way they acted, but for no reason. They didn't get caught, there were no repercussions to their actions. They just magically feel remorse.
4. Buildup without payoff. Best example is GoT, 6 seasons of "Winter is coming" only for the cheapest solution possible. Same for the Prince that was promised.
5. Fake deaths/farewells that get resolved instantly. Disney Star Wars is absolutely riddled with this.
In regards to the dagger from Shadar Logoth... it WAS the "next season"... but it was also the very next episode.
Almost as bad... maybe even worse... the thing was feeding on MAT'S evil... at least, according to our supposedly most knowledgeable character... and thus... Moron.
Edit - add... and Moiraine has been so wrong, so many times, that no one could/should trust anything she says, ever... which is another reason that I renamed her.
#2 is a big one for me too. The story is successful enough to have earned an adaptation! So it's pretty good! Just ADAPT it, instead of getting it into your head that you, as the show's writer, are empowered to fundamentally reimagine everything.
@@dant7677 A lot of these writers, and show-runners, do it for a different reason than "shock value"... although that is definitely one reason.
They also do it, in order to inject their own agenda.
This particular show-runner is one of this category.
What they *really* want to do, I suspect, is to create their own shows with their own agendas, but the studios know that those shows won't make money... because they appeal to far too small of an audience.
"Bros" is a good example.
Thus, they turn to established IP's, and subvert them by injecting their own personal agendas into it.
This show-runner promised to do exactly that, and he has delivered on it.
He also thr3at3n3d, at least once, to inject even more into it.
Just a note, though. It’s a point in the Star Wars prequels that while _the_Jedi_ think that the Sith order has been extinct for centuries, they've been around for all of that time, hiding from the jedi. That’s the exact point of the entire Episode 1! A hidden threat that's always been there, right under their nose. Otherwise, I agree with the arguments you're making, but the first example is false.
At Episode 3, I was in full denial/panic mode. "It's ok, they can still do this. There's a lot to cover in the books and this is really just a sped up version. It makes sense, we're good. We can do this."
I full checked out at he end of season one with everything that happened at/around the Eye of the World and the battles that occurred. By that time, all of the inconsistencies and changes were just too much to maintain any delusion that the show was going to be good. (And I mean that both as a worthy adaptation of the original material and as just a well written, consistent and logical show.)
I absolutely agree with this My disappointment started in episode 1 I kept struggling through season one hoping that they could correct it in some way but I will never watch another episode after the final episode of season 1 they totally lost me.
I first got alarmed when I read that Rafe planned to make the wheel of time "more feminist". That's never a good sign. But well the story is pretty focussed on women ruling and being the most powerful in the land, so I still saw some hope he wouldn't butcher it too badly.
Then the winespring inn scene got released as a teaser, and I knew it was going to be shit. All of that scene was awful and cheesy, not to mention an absolute betrayal of the characters involved and the lore. And among all of the first season that was already available by that time, this was the scene they chose as a way to try to attract people to their show ? this was the best they could offer ? I mean, Lan and Moiraine using absolutely no subtlety, broadcasting their nature, and the ugly ring with a gem of the color of the ajah ? the delivery worthy of an episode of xena...
And then, they released the first 3 episodes. and in the very first minutes, they have the "the dragon could be a man or a woman", and that was the final nail in the coffin for me. Obviously, the people writing the scripts had absolutely no understanding of the worldbuilding, to say such a thing, as it is absolutely world altering.
If it wasn't for my girlfriend insisting on watching the 3 episodes, I would have stopped right then and there. By the end of episode 3, she was raging just as much as me, if not more. We did not go further.
My biggest hope is for that show to get cancelled asap so that we may have a chance at getting a worthy adaptation sooner, maybe as animation.
Yes... by episode S1E3, they had made massive foundational errors.
The fridging, and even being married, for Perrin.
Turning Mat into a thief.
The possibility that the DR could an XX.
NOT setting up the stakes.
The funny thing is, I wasn't even done with book 1 when I was watching S1E3, and I knew, even then, that they had screwed up, even as an independent piece of entertainment. It just... was so bad.
@iogssothoth666 It was obvious from just the first few chapters that the book was already very feminist. Saying you want to make it moreso was unnecessary and risking making it obnoxious. Don't get me wrong. I love a lot of feminist stories. Princess Mononoke is a good example. The messaging can work if it feels natural and nkt out of place.
There's often one big thing that distracts from showing the passage of time. And I acknowledge that there are very strong production reasons for doing this, but in the WoT show, Rand always looks like he shaved within the past few hours, and his haircut is under a week old. Perrin's beard is never anything but... sculpted. Mat's always the exact same degree of scruffy. They don't *look* like they've been travelling. I could accept this for Moiraine and Lan, because it's not like they're going to go without hot water.
It probably bugs me more right now because UA-cam's algortithm pointed me at a video about the movie Das Boot, which was titled "the descent to hell, told in faces". And unlike most other productions, it was filmed in sequence, and the cast kept indoors over most of the shoot, so the beard growth and change in pallor over the course of the film aren't achieved with makeup. So the passage of time is written all over the face of everyone you see.
I agree with there being multiple ways to show the passage of time. If they couldnt shoot montages of seasons passing, they definitely should have used everything else they had, like the hair and clothes, as you said.
Don't worry about the editing. This show doesn't deserve all the work you put into reviewing. Thanks for the video :). Personally the show was broken from episode 1 and I never read the books before the show aired. The reason was how they handled matt from the beginning. He appeared to look like a crackhead, slimy, not trustworthy, a thief and I couldn't understand why rand and perring were friends with him. Him and his family were there to be white trash and I didnt like it.
It was definitely a weird choice to make the main characters so off rails feom their book inspiration. It was ASKING for trouble down the line.
Speaking of unforgivable, I truthfully hit my limit with the show when I read the description they released before season one. Something like, "This is the story of a woman who thinks she's the savior of the world but is too stupid to figure out which of the five hero candidates actually is the savior of the world."
@@richardmonk5522 bahahaha!
I think a problem now is with how shows are made. They spend so much money to make 8 - 10 episode seasons that there's no time to learn, there's no time to fix things. It's very difficult to improve or course correct with such short seasons. Back when shows got 22 - 26 episodes a season, they had a chance to improve over time. Writers could hone their craft and learn from their mistakes.
For example, one of my favorite shows is Star Trek: TNG, and most of the first two seasons were horrible. If TNG aired today, it wouldn't get past the 5th or 6th episode. But the show had the time to mature and get better.
The show wasn't insanely expensive and they could afford to make more episodes. Even if you adjust for inflation, the budget of a single season of a big streaming show on Netflix or Disney+ can make like 100 episodes of an old Trek show.
The writers, directors, producers who learned and sharpened their skills on those shows went on to make new shows. Several Trek writers/producers went on to make other great shows. Ron Moore made BSG and For all Mankind. Naren Shankar made The Expanse. Brannon Braga produced, wrote, and directed for The Orville. Bryan Fuller did Pushing Daisies, Hannibal, and American Gods.
You have a similar problem with movies. It used to be that new directors would start with indie low budget movies, move on to mid budget movies, and then make the blockbusters. Now there are almost no mid budget movies. Indie directors who have only made a few $5-10 million movies suddenly get hired to make $200 million blockbusters. And you compound the director's inexperience with demands from studio execs and focus groups.
I agree that we need longer seasons in a lot of these shows. Honestly, writing to a hard limit is asking for problems. Especially rally in the "epic" genre.
For me the issues with the Wheel of Time show come down completely to one or two decisions made at the very beginning. I can understand why they did it but by not focussing on the binary difference on both the genders and magic system the rest of the plot of the series completely falls apart.
It extends to the decision that the 'Dragon may be male or Female' which makes no sense since the reason people are afraid of the Dragon is that he is Male and therefore will go Mad and possibly destroy the world again.
With the magic system they have not really removed the fact that Saidair and Saidin are different but the have purposely not focussed on the fact and in doing so not made it clear how the magic system works. It therefore alters characters personalities, motivations, wishes and fears. One main issue with Rand in the early books is that he doesn't know how to channel and that there is noone left alive who is able to teach him as Saidair is so different the Aes Sedai cannot.
Someone described the show ad requiring the audience to know the books to understand, while at the same time completely bastardizing the books. Make it make sense!
I think that if the binary nature of magic is so problematic for these people today there shouldn't be any adaptation at all. Although I feel that a good writer might have found a way to incorporate it into the story without the bullshit about possible female dragon
I'd strongly disagree on this one. I loved many things in the books, but the way the author constantly essentializes "masculine" vs "feminine" traits was one of the worst things I've read. It's not just the inner dialogues of female characters considering all male stupid, and men treating all women as crazy and impossible to understand (with no exception whatsoever, as far as I can remember now): it's also exactly what you mention here: to use the One Power, women have to think they are a rose bud opening to something more powerful than them, and "surrender completely" to it, so that they can "control" it. Whereas men have to fight and overpower Saidin of course, because they're all rapist and natural predators at their heart. It might be fun to read as a male reader, but I didn't enjoy the least bit of it as a woman. On the other hand, in the show it's simply "men go crazy after channeling for too long, whereas women don't", and that was good enough for me.
@@metube6482 I do not agree. All these conflicts between men and women more or less demonstrate how silly they are, and that men and women need to find a way to understand each other and work together. As for One Power, I see it as Saidin and Saidar having different physical/mystical properties and thus they require different approaches to handle it. And I certainly don't see (as a woman, so don't pin it on all women) how seizing Saidar by men equals being a predator and rapist. And I am pretty certain that Jordan didn't see it this way. And, I also don't understand how your comment is connected to mine, because all that I said is that maybe it is not a good idea to do an adaptation of something that you deeply disagree with. Because the creators of the show very obviously don't like the binary nature of the WoT world and the fact that the main character is a male.
@@Talestra7 Talestra7, I agree that I shouldn't have added the bit about male abuse, which is indeed a stretch from what the actual text describes. For me the main issue with how it's written is that weird notion of it being almost the "natural essence" of men and women. In other words, having stereotypical characters is one thing (we could say they're all a product of the cultures they live in, in a sense), but when creating all the characters from the same mold, and having that mold strongly echoed by the "laws of magic", it gives the story a very different taste.
I'm not pinning my opinion on all women as you said, but I do think it worked well for many male readers in the 90ies to have a story strongly reinforcing misogynistic biases. Now, for a TV show, I'm defending the view that it's a GOOD thing that the 'surrendering rose bud' imagery has been taken off. @annanz0118 suggested that it was a flaw in the adaptation, and I want to question that.
I’m really enjoying these casual styled videos; So many excellent points made and I REALLY liked your take on this series. I gave up watching it after Season One. You’ve done an excellent job putting words to how I was feeling about the bad (and unforgivable) writing of this show’s characters. Thank you & cheers!
Needs an overhaul. Like a new show runner who actually likes and knows the story.
Yes! And they need to put seasons out more frequently, honestly. This was doomed from the start when they took 2 years per season.
At this point, even changing the show runner can't save it. This is a tear down and rebuild situation.
@@richardmonk5522 I have to agree. This show is beyond saving.
@@richardmonk5522 true
they need to scrap it and start over and actually read the books and stick closer to it.
You make a good point about hitting a threshold of tolerance. I find that people have different thresholds for different aspects of a show, and often people do mot notice or pay much attention to issues until they hit that threshold. But that once the threshold is crossed every flaw becomes noticeable and demoralizing.
Once a show breaks immersion, and the audience loses trust and suspension of disbelief, it is very difficult to recover it.
Big, objective flaws with widespread repercussions are a great way to destroy the contract of immersion between the audience and the creators.
Very well said. What seems to be misunderstood by Hollywood is that inconsistencies are going to pull fantasy fans out of the story.
Female heroes and competent women in literature and film used to be liked because when they showed their ability, it was done in a believable way. Leia grabbed a gun and shot a hole in a vent in Ep4, anyone could have done that but it was HER that did it. She didn’t beat the crap out of three guys with her fists…
Imagine a major character in a story who was a prominent member of her community. People talk about her with respect, even when she is not around. They worry that her negative opinion toward a long-awaited entertainment performance might impede it taking place. Even her detractors cite her skills. Face to face, people are in awe of her, so much that they don't even realize their love interest is standing beside her. Later on, she demonstrates formidable skills at handling a crisis, and then in follow a group whose movements are being concealed by experts. She is so skilled that the experts enlist her aid to rescue prisoners from a military encampment. It is later revealed that she has magic powers that manifested as a result of her caring for other people and wanting to help them.
Or imagine a character who is an outsider in the community, holding a position of nominal respect, but who carries no authority in the community. People argue in front of her and utterly ignore her pleas to stop. She is always apart from community ceremonies. Even when she clearly does not like newcomers to the area, they are treated with respect. During a crisis, where many of her neighbors are shown saving people and handling stuff, she fails in every such attempt, with those she tries to save dying, or someone else being needed to save her instead. Then she gets kidnapped and later stumbles over good guys, attacks them, is easily defeated and taken prisoner. She is released to hopefully help one of them, but the other person finds a better option than her skills and they seek out that help in stead. Her magic powers manifest suddenly and spontaneously, in a panic when she sees her crush is hurt. She accomplishes nothing except to get talked down to by literally every character with whom she interacts.
Rafe Judkins thinks they are the same character. But he also has Egwene repeatedly escape captivity because she wills it and is constantly making a mockery of the world-building by having her defeat enemies out of her weight class with no explanation for her unaccountable victory. He might argue, and his defenders do, that any criticism of Egwene's arc is an attack on female competence and heroism, but his writing of Nynaeve, and the sheer number of times he has Egwene win or survive because the bad guys did something inexplicably dumb (Inquisitor who repeatedly handles powerful channelers without breaking a sweat is paralyzed with fear at a man with yellow eyes standing still; expert torturer and slave-trainer threatens to cut out Egwene's tongue for non-compliance, and when she does not comply ... decides to cut her hair instead, claiming it will hurt more), proves he and his writers room don't understand competent heroism, regardless of the sex.
But it's okay. They show girls & women with weapons, and training with weapons, and there are a lot of men shown doing housework and cooking. Sexism is cured.
I don’t remember a distinct moment, but there was this cumulative weight of divergence from the source material to where I eventually started hoping for show cancellation. My pipe dream wish is for a network like HBO and a showrunner that respects and feels loyalty to the original work to give it another chance, but it’s a fool’s hope.
We are fools together ☺️
I was there by Ep 4 of S1.
The only feasible hope for a faithful visual adaptation is now, is via animation.
@@anonymouslyopinionated656 that was always the ONLY hope for a direct adaptation of the whole source material
@@anonymouslyopinionated656 Animation is much harder to produce, so they typically do more refining in the pre-production process, including the writing. This would make a great anime, I think. If Japan picked it up, I'd want Studio Bones to do it. They'd be great!
@this.is.a.username Changes always have to be made (cuts and additions) when adapting from book to visual medium. But, yes, animation or Graphic Novel would require the least amount of changes.
15:14 You could be The Dragon, and you could be The Dragon, and you could be The Dragon...
This was my breaking point in the show. They did so little character development IN ORDER TO KEEP THE MYSTERY OF "wHo Is ThE dRaGoN?"
Lol. Yes!
And YOU could be The Dragon!
I'm sorry to say but for me the thing I couldn't ignore was almost right out the gate when Moraine says: "There are rumor's of Ta'veren in the Two Rivers" and the corollary that a woman could be the Dragon Reborn. The first thing drastically hurt the world building because how on earth would this rumour get started? Clearly no one in the Two Rivers think that and I doubt any of them would know what that was.
The second thing really hurts the plot and the implications don't make much sense. Why would there be any danger or fear over what would amount to be just an extremely powerful Aes Sedai being born? They wouldn't go mad so there would be no risk to the world being broken again. Also how would this hypothetical Dragon reborn fulfill the prophecies like claiming Callandor or cleansing the taint?
From there I was let down and disappointed more than I was impressed.
my favorite series of books, this show needs to be "Willowed" and the IP put away until we get writers who have walked a mile and understand the relation between distance and time exist again
Frankly, it needs to be taken away from the wahmenists and rainbows.
Haha! I still can't believe Disney took Willow off D+. So embarrassing. Removing it only drew more attention to it, I swear.
@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS it’s going to end up being a cult show in 20 years, traded like the Star Wars special on the VHS of the day 😂
@@greggtierney8418 🤣🤣🤣
@@Nyet-Zdyes the fact that the channel liked this comment tells me all i need to know about the kind of person she is.
Your analyses are always so fascinating. I really like that you're not simply bashing the show because it destroyed the original material (I can happily do it by myself) but pointing out the real flaws in the show creators' writing.
If the show was good on its own, even with changes to the source material, I thing book fans would be a lot more receptive. Plenty of good movies out there that deviated from the source material.
@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS Yes, I remember seeing an adaptation that was pretty far from the original material, where they removed some major characters and replaced a lot of scenes, and still, it was enjoyable and kept the spirit of the book
My family and I are doing a big(ish) 1500 piece puzzle. My wife and I have done puzzles our entire lives. My three-year-old has also done puzzles all her life. technically. She's not very good at it though. The adults do a fair job of finding similar colors/patterns and grouping them together until we find matching sets. My daughter just grabs whatever piece she wants and shoves it into whatever part of the puzzle she wants. Mountain piece in the middle of the ocean? Sure. Why not. Then mom and dad gently and slowly extricate the piece and try to put it in the right area--ballparking it until we find the exact home for it.
I feel like some of these adaptations are just puzzle pieces jammed anywhere because technically, a puzzle piece is pretty similar to another puzzle piece, regardless of what the picture may be showing. No literary adaptation is perfect. LoTR is beautiful but some puzzle pieces are missing because there wasn't enough room on the table for the massive picture. Some pieces got rearranged because it looked like they might fit and they were close so they made it work.
The fans can tell. It's an integrity thing. The 'mistake threshold' is a lot higher for viewers if they can tell that the production team actually gave a shit. We can smell a cash grab from a mile away. If you're trying to start a 5,000 piece puzzle on a nightstand, we'll watch you put it together with a certain morbid fascination but also we'll be biting our fingernails in frustration knowing that you're an idiot for trying.
27:48 Rand's channeling for me was a big one too. In the books they explain it away with "memories from the AoL" (age of legends), combined with the "need" aspect that builds tension in the story while providing a temporary unearned out. But even then he mostly relies on the flame sword for a while afterward. In the show, he goes all over the place in how he's able to channel, how much he can channel, what he does with his channeling, etc. Nothing is earned, there's no explanation for where his strength came from or where it went, and he flips between incompetent and master assassin and back in the blink of an eye.
Lol. I still find it ridiculous that he can take out all those armed men, but then Siuan was able to shield him like jt was nothing. I thought he was supposed to be way more powerful than Logain. Logain needed 2 people to give it their all to hold him down.
I think Brandon Sanderson said they did the show more like they would an episodic tv show writing each episode and shooting instead of writing the whole season and working from there. That also makes sense with the inconsistencies
@tingtaiji it totally does. Bad idea for epic fantasy. You need to outline the whole series, and draft a season at a time, at least.
Started watching when you started reviewing wheel of time, you do a fantastic job of breaking down the show vs the book and even providing editorial comments of how they could improve.
Haha. Don't watch my next review, then. I actually thought it was well done. I just didn't care about it being well done because the plot and characters are already so thoroughly destroyed.
Short story. I lost my patience with the CSI series when the following happened. There was a character called 'the miniatures killer', who built detailed miniatures of their murder scenes, so that the team had to work out where the murder had taken place in reality, and the miniatures were always fabulously accurate.
At the end of one season, it's clear that one of the female members of the team has become a victim, the miniature shows her trapped under an upside down car but her arm is waving so they know she's alive. Now the have to find her.
Beginning of the next scene, the bad guy - SPOILER! who's actually a woman - is driving into the desert, with the victim tied up in the back. They have a spite-filled discussion. Then the victim is on her front, and the bad girl is lowering the car - not the one they came in, it's sort of a 50s style car IIRC - on top of her. There's more snide conversation, then the bad girl jumps in the car in which she drove to the site. The camera pulls back, it's an aerial shot, and we see the trapped CSI woman trapped underneath the car, and the other car being driven away.
I was yelling at the TV. "How did she lift and then lower an entire car? Where's the crane, or a tow truck with some lifting gear?' There was nothing there. Obviously we weren't supposed to think it was magic.
That's just insulting, and I don't like having my intelligence insulted by screenwriters, so I've never watched another episode!!
Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
Bahahaha! This is the best screwup I've heard of in a long time. That is SO bad!
@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS I was astonished. All those people involved in the creation of that scene. Someone MUST have said 'Well, how did she lift and lower the car?' and everyone stood around feeling stupid until someone else said 'Fuck it. They won't notice.'
@@BenjWarrant 🤣🤣🤣 Probably accurate.
The point was never to make a good product, only to high-jack the already profitable one. It would be a bonus if it did turn out good, but we now know how it turned out.
I'm convinced more and more that this was a carelessly crafted money-grab.
I'll say it again. The book series is one of my all-time favorites. Like most fans of the books, I'm one of the first to point out the numerous flaws. There were tremendous opportunities for editing several books out of the series and getting rid of some "Jordanisms" while keeping the spirit of the story. I wasn't expecting (nor did I want) a word-for-word translation to screen. I think Amazon shot the project in the foot by limiting the number of episodes and limiting them to an hour. But they didn't even try to keep the spirit of the story. This is just an abomination of fan fiction and I question if I should include the word "fan".
I really like the actors and I don't blame them for bad directorial/editorial/writing decisions. There are occasional glimpses of brilliance in acting and cinematography, but not enough to make the show enjoyable.
I agree with all of this. I don't mind changes that honor the source material. And yes, there were lots of opportunities to redine and fix some things that the book could have done a little better.
But the show is terrible even on its own. Such a disappointment.
I can't rationalize Wheel of Prime as "adaptation". For me, it's like video fanfic, created by not very bright author who can't grasp all narratives or symbols of the books and not even care about them. But very proud of his ability to "create".
Fanfic is the best description of this show. It certain is not an adaptation.
Maybe losing that edit was a blessing in disguise, this is a much more digestible video.
Will definitely tune in for the live stream to discuss the Wheel of Crimes
@@TheWarmestFuzzy this is not the video I lost all the editing for. That's my S2 E5 video.
@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS aiya, I'm so out of the loop
Acolyte was unforgivable in the 2nd episode
Haha! I watched up through episode 3 and that was my limit. 😅
Why?
@@waltonsmith7210 like wheel of time, it’s a junior showrunner that think they know better than the author and wants to put their name on it, so they take wild liberties without the experience to understands the consequences of the decisions they’re making. They include DEI, but in a ham fisted way that has no effect on the story, then use this as a shield against any criticism of their work. Literally everything they teased, like a Jedi Wookie and Jedi Trinity and lightsaber whip and use it for a handful of scenes that fail to pay off on the promises teased. It’s generally a shit show, and I have no idea how these people keep getting hired for these projects.
For me, a different TV show that suffers greatly from variable writing quality is Doctor Who. As someone who grew up in the UK when the original TV show was famously low budget, we could forgive a lot, but when the writing wasn't there, it was difficult to watch. With the reboot, it's even more apparent. The actors can only do so much with the material they're given.
I have been hearing the lament of the fans of Dr Who. It seems to me that Hollywood people need to study older movies and films and see what they have stopped doing.
I began watching as a kid, back during Tom Baker's Dr. Who.
Even back then I was massive Sci-Fi geek... and eventually, the writing and characters of Dr. Who managed to get my "Westerns-only" uncle sucked into the show, too.
@@Nyet-Zdyes I also grew up watching Tom Baker. It was a great formative experience, both on TV and in books. Certainly fired up my imagination. When it is good, it can be truly great, but think it is sometimes let down by weaker writing by particular showrunnners. Long may it continue though!
@@davidrobertson5996 The old British shows had some great characters and writing.
I'm not saying it was all great, or equal, but in general, it was an area where they tended to excel, for the most part.
They didn't have the huge budgets, so they had to make up for it in other ways.
The only thing recent that I have experienced this was reading a book and what started to take me out of the story was really not knowing how much time was passing. Now I'm not just noticing that but other mistakes. I was trying to remain positive, but now the gloves are off.
In both books and TV/Movies, what takes me out is if a character does something that is dumb. In WoT, when Rand and Egwene sleep with each other in the tavern while trying to keep a secret they are together. Why? It's also a tavern/inn. Opened all the time and ran by her family who sleep in the back of the inn and they don't see or hear anything? That kind of mistake really makes me look for more and I don't want to.
I thought it was so ridiculous! Anyone could have walled in and seen them. Lol.
Oh, was that supposed to be a secret? Lmao, I vaguely remember it and my brain has categorized it as something everyone knew. An open secret if you will.
When I first watched Wheel of Time, it was before I read the books. And I took Perrin killing his wife as a forgivable change, showing his torment of thinking he could kill Eqwene(?), to keep her from suffering an attack by the crows or whatever. But the show never went anywhere like the books did.
But I think the biggest issue is I believe show runners are becoming extremely less talented. They just need to check off boxes. And writers just get the ideas down and move on. So the story itself suffers, but the show runners and producers don't care since they got what they wanted out of it. They made something, made money, made a statement, moved on. I could be wrong...because if writers are this bad, I don't see how they'd keep getting work.
Because we have a consumer base that is easily entertained by flashy shiny things and they have been trained to not think critically about anything. I call it the Michael Bay effect. Sometimes I watch his movies and go, "oh my gosh that was AMAZING!! The special effects and explosions were sooo good!" Then on my way home as I think about it I'm like we'll that couldn't have happened like that, and this part wasn't quite plotted right, hmmm that part didn't flow right for the storyline. You know I think I just got swept along from one exciting point to another!
@@toddjackson3136 That's sort of what she was talking about. You can sacrifice story and believability for the sake of fun. That's what Michael Bay focused on, the fun blockbuster, big spectacles. And even low budget films will be plot holes, because they are focused on other things that make the films and shows worth watching. But now, they are focused on trying to have a political statement or whatever and forgot to put the fun back in. Politics and such have always been apart of stories, but they are often mixed into the fun. The writers kinda forgot people watch things for fun. I often watch movies listed as "so bad its good", that you have to turn your brain off for, because they are fun. And that makes it forgivable if for an hour or so i get something out of it. A great story or fun, writers have two options.
Feom what I hear, the writers aren't necessarily responsible for all the bad writing. Higher higher ups are demanding that certain things be done to the scripts, and the writers have to go along with it. I want to know what it was that brought the process of writing screenplay to this state. Why can't it go back to how it was?
@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS From what I gather from this tiktoker who writes for TV, used to studios hired writers to work on shows, sort of like how they used to do actors. You worked for the studio doing whatever shows they wanted. Maybe multiple. Now writers are paid per episode, writing less (from 22 episodes down to 8 or 10), and bounce between finding jobs to keep busy. So I'm guessing, so many different writers coming in trying to put their stamp on, while showrunners pushing their idea, and producers looking for the best angle to sell to the most people just doesn't work. Maybe should return to writers being given a job and locked into a studio. But then writers will complain since they (from this guy's channnel), want to sell their own pilots and such, so being locked to a studio would make it impossible. So...there's very little we can do but hope something good makes it through all those trenches I guess.
@@toddjackson3136 The funny thing about that is my enthusiasm for movies and such was killed off when almost your only choice became watching the movies for the explosions and special effects. That stuff bores the carp out of me. (I’m looking at you Marvel movies.) And at all seemed to come at the expense of an intelligent story.
Speaking of Marvel movies, I never watched them in the theater because I was already tired of the blockbuster stuff and I wasn’t familiar with the comics (I have never found comics interesting.) No. I watched them several years after it started when I got tired of going to sf/f conventions and writers conferences and not getting all the references to them. So I watched almost the entire set of Marvel movies - 15 or so - in the span of a few months. Even they progressed from better made movies to “wtf did I just watch?” as we got further in. Something shifted in the storytelling. A big piece of it is overreliance on green screen.
To me, the greatest sin the show has committed, is the destruction of the character of Mat, which really just highlights the direction the showrunner wanted to take the series as a whole. And yes, most of this is due to the fact that I've read the books many many times. The show spent the majority of the first two seasons making him extremely unlikable. Starting off in the first episode, they portray him as a thief, as opposed to be lovable rogue that he is in the books. Then the show greatly truncated how he gained the Shadar Logoth dagger, again just presenting him as an opportunistic thief. And the ultimate sin when it comes to Mat, is that Moiraine casually breaks the link between him and the dagger. In the books, this link is vital to the character of Mat. It is what truly sets him on his path. Retrieving it after it was stolen was one of the main plot points to the Great Hunt, and then having him healed of the link in the Dragon Reborn, where it took nearly an entire circle using a sa'angreal to do so, and simply reducing it to a minute or so of Moiraine acting like an inflatable wacky waving arm guy, so frustrating. But that is how the show is, it downplays all the actions the three boys do, while greatly expanding the actions of the girls. And don't get me wrong, I have nothing against strong female characters, but when the showrunner reduces the true main characters of the story they're adapting into minor side characters, such as what happened to Mat in season 2, then for the life of me, I can't understand why they wouldn't just make a new story based around strong female characters. On a side note, giving Nynaeve a sword training scene in season 2 was just the cherry on top of the ridiculousness of this show.
This problem of reducing the heros in order to make the heroines look good is a bad formula. It never works. If you make the enemies stupid, you hero just looks a little better than stupid. Not smart.
The same applies to other character traits.
100% 5 minutes in and I knew we were in trouble. They had my guy losing at dice and begging for a loan!? Matrim Cauthon... gambling and losing?? So many things wrong in the show but Mats character is hands down the most unforgivable to me. The idea that Matt is a shade away from being a darkfriend? Can't let it go! Love these characters too much to see these "writers" intentionally deconstruct them for their own agendas. Shameful.
@robwest2813 Yeah. Mat and Perrin had some of the most baffling changes. Why change your main characters to be less likeable?
Cant say I have watched this crap that far but bruh, giving Nynaeve SWORD training? Its a basic foundational scene from the books where Siuan shows her exactly how useless swords are against channelers 😂😂😂💀💀💀
@Shrouded_reaper ahh, I think I see the problem here. When I said sword training, I meant there is a scene in season 2 where Nynaeve is doing actual sword training with a pair of warders. I was not referring to the scene from The Great Hunt novel where Egwene and Nynaeve are on the boat traveling to Tar Valon when the Amyrlin enters their cabin and offers to give them a lesson in channeling. During the book scene, Nynaeve makes an offhand comment about training with a sword would be more practical before Siuan puts her in her place.
Oh, and this is going into my "Writing, Good and Bad" playlist, a list which has unfortunately been growing lately.
@charleshartley9597 😃 I am so excited to be included on someone's custom Playlist! Haha!
Not the greatest? Maybe, but I've listened to prepared and edited speeches and videos that were a lot less concise and/or informative. So, thanks for "getting over it".
And for this being a more casual format, I think you hit the sweet spot of it being just over half an hour nicely.
As for the main point: Well made, the idea of "until the cup runeth over".
I suppose my main want towards the adaption of an IP, especially if it is a major one AND one of the first ones, is that it keeps the core and the central themes of the author's intent. In this series, that intent was defenestrated with the first line were here in the introduction in the first episode.
On the other hand, if I go to yet another production of Hamlet, I'm more OK - even expecting - an interpretation of the original work. Although I would prefer that they keep some of the most memorable lines intact. It wouldn't be Hamlet without the "To be, or not to be".
The core of the Wheel of Time story is the kid from a backwater village being thrust out into a world he knows nothing about, who needs to learn fast without losing himself. And faces the realization that the magic he manifests along the way is considered the root of all evil and yet still necessary to accomplish what he must.
And all that in time before that magic drives him insane and kill him while also dealing with that certainty. And for a young person, basically a teenager, the idea that you are not immortal is a hard pill to swallow.
I didn't see any of that in this series.
The core structure of the world Jordan built isn't reflected at all. Feels to me that they just took some names and some set pieces to then make something completely different and basically unrelated.
Agreed, but I also think an adaptation has an overall responsibility to make the original fans happy - because without the original fans there wouldn't have been an adaptation in the first place, and the showrunner, directors, writers would be out of that job. That means adapting the fans favorite moments, keeping the characters the same, keeping the thematic intent like you already said, etc. A Hamlet adaptation can be changed to some degree because there are so many adaptations of it already, be it theatre, movies or television. For Wheel of Time, this is the only adaptation (excluding Winter Dragon, which only did the prequel to book one) so it should by necessity make an attempt to be as close as possible to the source material.
This feels more and more like a cash-grab than a project of love. It would explain the careless treatment of the world and characters.
@stephengrant4841 yes! If you insult the fans, you are gaining enemies. If you please the fans, you are gaining free advertisers.
It's been a LONG while since I logged into this account to find latest WoT news. This is on point. One of the main ways in which I made cuts in my fan edit was exactly at those scenes and points where the inconsistency was so glaring.
Clearly they didn't read the books and they didn't have any grasp on which characters were beloved. Turning Matt into an evil character was the most heinous offense amongst many offenses. Loial was a close second. Heck, they neutered THE DRAGON. I think my limit was reached about 10 minutes into the series.
I'm not one to call things "woke", I think that's stupid as fuck, but this show has a clearly deliberate attempt to neuter the male characters and elevate the women. Rand's coolest moments in the first two (three kind of) books are taken away entirely, sometimes given to the women. Mat's coolest moment, blowing the horn, was underwhelming. Same with Perrin killing the white cloaks and communicating with the wolves.
@@stephengrant4841 And there was no need. They give plenty of time to all of the characters and the main women are all super powerful but there can ONLY BE ONE DRAGON.
Haha! That's longer than some. That opening monologue had several issues.
@@stephengrant4841 Tryig to make character look better by making the surrounding characters look bad.... NEVER WORKS! Why can't these people figure this out?!
@@jmalonemythBingo!
Thank you for all the effort that you put in for this show. Watching you try to love it at first and then getting overwhelmed by all the BS that this show is, made my experience better. Someone else was going through this show and having the same, or similar experience that I was. Yet could put it into words so much better then I, made my day every time it happened. Thank you.
Haha! I was really hoping for a show that would be mostly good, so I wouldn't have 3 hours lf critique. I've set a standard for myself that I'm struggling to keep up with. 😅
I totally agree on all of this. The show should never have been made unless they were actually going to respect the source material and improve it where possible rather than making it worse in every possible way. I am embarrassed that there is only one degree of separation between me and Rafe Judkins 😭🤣
I just don't understand how he can claim to be a fan and not understand how the fans would hate such drastic changes to the story and characters.
My pet nitpick is the way "smart" characters are so often written.
Apparently the only thing they're allowed to talk about is the fact that they know more than everyone else. Or, they drop constant reminders about their IQ score, or their schooling.
Apparently the only ways they're allowed to spend time are (a) reading mountains of books -- learning the thoughts of dumber people, by the way -- or (b) dabbling in every single branch of science, including both theory and experiment.
Can't we please have a "smart" character who's just plain doing their own thing, in ways that aren't immediately grokked by other characters until an explanation is available?
Or maybe a character whose WAY of being smart is not to know more than you do, but to ask more questions than you do (the RIGHT questions)?
@dant7677 I love this idea. The inquisitive mind is so underrated in storytelling. I read a series once, where everyone thought the main girl was stupid because she always asked so many questions. Turns out, she was just trying to understand the world from every possible perspective, and she ended up helping to save the world because she was creative in her approach to the growing strength of the bad guys. Other than that, though, it was also a young adult romance, and that's not my thing. But I loved how she was portrayed and the world thy was built. It was refreshing to have a smart female protagonist who was also humble and brave.
Oh, wait, I thought this was about "The Acolyte" Amber, hahahaha… sigh
Your point toward the end is spot on with regard to current writers and oversight, editing, proofing, etc.
And in the case of Acolyte, it is even more important because that is a new story, not based (however loosely, lol) on pre-existing novelization.
Amazing as always, Amber, thank you.
@charleshartley9597 Thanks! Yeah, I thought abojt doing something on The Acolyte, but I really don't know Star Wars lore well enough. I watched up to episode 3 and could tell thus felt like it didn't fit the world, but I couldn't give any definitive reason for that. Except maybe that I never imagined the Force being something you can conjure with spells and handwaving.
I knew what I was getting into when they started changing the story in the first episodes cold open, so many problems from Moraine's lines alone, kept watching for to odd moment where the books characters come out. Your reviews have been cathartic, and entertaining!
@@lukebaird8643 thank you! Hopefully my S2 E5 Review will be done soon enough to get it out next week.
The issue is that there are new "rules" to writing, based on group identity, certain characters must be written, or cannot be written certain ways based on group identity, female characters cannot be represented a being "weaker" (in ANY way) than males, male characters cannot exhibit "toxic masculinity" such as stoicism, EVERY part of the world must be as diverse as downtown LA etc.
In addition they apply this to the people they employ as well, they employ people that fit THEIR category of "good" not who are actually good at their job, you see a LOT of this in Disney.
I was introduced to WoT through my brother who I adored. We were not living in the same city but he would send me a box of the books every now & then when they released. He passed away just over a year ago. It is difficult to put into words now how much this series means to me, I treasure so much it hurts. The characters are so precious bc they remind me so much of my beloved brother. Watching S2 recently just felt like a dagger right through my heart - how could they butcher these characters so much! I myself tried so hard to be forgiving with the adaptation but honestly, from the moment Perrin's "wife" appeared, and then promptly killed - I knew in my gut this was going to be awful. I tried to justify some changes but my last straw was the absolutely ridiculous love triangle at the end of S1. S2 was just a blur of nonsense with the occasional sprinkling of nostalgia. I really felt empty, hollow and meaningless. It is so bittersweet to see a series we cherish be destroyed in this way but I'm at least grateful we can turn back to the books when overwhelmed but Amazon & Judkin's monstrosity.
Best thing to come out of Wheel of Time TV show are your breakdowns of how bad the show is. Kinda worth it tbh.
What you said about Perrin's wife and the end of season one was like an epiphany for me. The arc they should have gone for was Perrin's reckless use of violence leading to the death of his wife, but his hesitancy to use violence causes even more loss, forcing him to realise he can't just go one path or the other. And if that was indeed the arc they were aiming for, then how badly they missed the landing on it because it just seemed like he ended season one as a useless wretch after killing his wife and facing no consequences about it, other than an episode of pouting, and then does nothing to stop Fain. I never realised this was meant to be a lesson for him, he just seemed like he had been all season, a neutered character.
You hit the nail on the flat end! That is exactly the problem with his character. They really didn't distill his scenes at all.
If you look at the other male characters, what was done to/with them, you can see that there is a pervasive pattern. It is even there with Lan, albeit to a lesser degree... or perhaps more subtly.
So, yeah, Perrin was just another neutered male character.
Then, in S2, they have Perrin kill Bornhald, a massive change from the books.
In a way, it's like when he fridged his wife... doubling down on it.
POSSIBLE SPOILER ...
And the chain reaction of events is going to lead to him actually being guilty, instead of innocent, when he has problems with the WC's in the Two Rivers... which will completely turn that arc upside down.
He will no longer be the innocent man wrongly accused... and Dain Bornhald won't be the guy chasing the wrong man because he was told a lie/error... he'll be the guy who was right, and saw it himself.
In turn, this is going to make that whole thread another crock of moral relativism... and that is going to ruin Dain Bornhald's arc... unless they abandon that thread in order to adapt it.
@@Nyet-Zdyes tbh, I nearly wrote about Bornhald but then realised it may be a book spoiler so refrained
@@Marwolaeth01 Yeah... I went back and edited my comment to include a spoiler warning when I started talking about Dain.
But... I hadn't mentioned how that played out... just different ways that it *could* play out.
The shills who defend this poop-show as being good, sticking to the "ideas" from the book, and so on, are... de-loo-loo... or perhaps very low "wattage". (or "lumens")
@@Nyet-Zdyes That wasn't spoiled for me. I'm already at that point. Yeah. This is yet another example of what happens when you change things early in the story. It makes it a lot harder to keep things on track further down the line.
Ooh! A new video about the destruction of one of mt favorite book series!! 👏
Haha. Nkt exactly the usual review style, but it's a companion, for sure.
Couldn't agree with you more!! You just read my mind. I wish there were more youtubers like you, to really talk about books and shows, analyze them and discuss, not just throw a few words out, all the same , all boring and not informative. I applaud you for that analysis. 👏👏👏
@anastasial4531 wow! Thank you 🥰 I think, since it's my job to help writers improve, I must have figured out ways to be informative and fun 😋
All writing is a contract of trust vs time. As a writer, we are asking for your time to see, read, listen to our story. And as an audience, you trust us with that time to enrich - mentally and emotionally.
The moment that trust is broken - it breaks everything. The suspension of disbelief, the tolerance of misdirection, the hold off of answers to questions raised.
I feel like the Wheel of Time suffers from "the rule of cool" being more important than anything else - oh this scene is cool. Oh that character is so bad ass. Oh that line slays.
Hopefully the show hasn't turned you off the books. I watched 60% of episode 1 and turned it off. I was expecting revisions, but to me, this isn't even the same story. First time viewer to your channel and a new sub. Love the passion and articulation. Im guessing you're a Leo..lol.
@@stormy7722 I'm in the middle of book 4, at the moment. The books are incomparable with the show. So much better. Lol.
@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS yeah i think woke Hollywood is the culprit.
Personally, I like the title Wheel of Prime
Not as insulting, but instantly recognizable
@@joesmutz9287 haha! It is that.
Rand is the main character but barely does anything in the show. The fact that Egwene fought Ishamael 1v1 and could stop him by herself was so stupid and illogical that even people I know who aren't very critical of what they watch found it idiotic.
@@waltwhite8126 so did my mom... and explaining fantasy stuff to my mom is like explaining the internet to my grandpa. If she could see how it didn't make sense, it must have been really bad.
I totally agree about side quests. If they're made interesting by giving them some kind of "impact" to the characters then I either have no problem or think they're good/great. I feel like this is one area where adaptations have an opportunity to improve on original stories (or really mess them up).
Brandon Sanderson talks about side quests in one kf his lectures, and I really enjoyed it. He got bad feedback on one of his side quests, and so he had to cut it out completely. I remember thinking to myself that there could have been some way to save it.... just make sure something happens that has a lot of impact.
I sure appreciate these videos!
❤😊❤ I appreciate your comments. Thank you 😊
The biggest issue I have with the show is that it is flagrantly displaying its disdain for the source material. Is this part of the plague of 'subverting the audience's expectations'? Dumbing down for a supposedly less-sophisticated viewing audience? The books have such a wealth of dialogue styles, quirky characters, world building, cuss words... and it all seems to be thrown out the window when these characters talk and behave like they live in our contemporary society. I just feel so completely saddened and disappointed that my favourite work of literature got its chance at an on-screen adaptation and I won't likely see a proper adaptation in my life time. I read each book as they were actually released, anticipating the next volume for a period of many years, daring to hope that a movie or series version would be created some day... and now I wish I had not watched any of this drivel and left myself with a sense of wonder that the show may have been excellent but I just neglected to watch it. Oh well, maybe in the next turning of the wheel...
It's always a mistake to dumb down material for an audience. No one likes being treated like they aren't intelligent enough to understand. But even kids are willing to be challenged. This is why Pixar did so well. The animation was what appealed to the younger kids. The great themes and stories and emotional moments are what appealed to the teens and adults.
feels like you are talking from my heart ^^ I am generally more on the unforgiving side, but all the things you mentioned about "did the character still do what they were supposed to do, get the story along in the right direction" and especially the "did the changes make sense, did they serve a purpose that made sense" thing resonates so much for me. Because you are sad when they change something. And then really angry when the change didn't even DO ANYTHING IMPORTANT later on, but just got forgotten. WoT the series is a dumpster fire. They can never reach the end. And the people calling it "another turn of the wheel" are enablers -.- There's fanfiction of ten year olds that makes more sense than the script for this series
Omg HEEEEEEEEY. Ive missed you so much ❤️ so glad you're back. As much as i love your videos and i want all the rants- I understand when you say it gets annoying. I get it. Wheel of time show is so dumb. The moment that killed me (among the very very very very very many) is when rand stabs ishy. Fcuk. Why.
I remember I got into an argument about just how bad season 1 was. I was writing multiple paragraphs each episode, and a short essay after the finale.
I was pointing out all the problems with the characters and plot and he tried defending it, eventually claiming I only hated it because I couldn't deal with them making changes to the book. He stopped replying when I told him I have never even read the books so I was purely going by what the show itself was doing.
I wish I had kept those notes, I could probably do a 20 minute video at least just reading them.
@Valkanna.Nublet Haha! Yeah. I've noticed that most of my complaints (especially for season 1) are solely based on the show messing itself up. Season 1 was so rough. I don't know how they got past it.
When the show came out, I watched it, never having read the books. Even for someone with no prior knowledge, there were so many really weird things like, what you said: the relationships between the characters, but also set-up, costumes, scenery etc. Then I watched Disapru's video's and thought: These books sound good. So I bought them all, read them in one long reading binge and now I'm reading them for the second time. They messed up badly in so many ways, with how they treated Loial, Mat (although they probably didn't anticipate having to change the actor so soon) and the battle at the and of season 1. I'm still a greater fan of Tolkien, but since I had prior knowlegde, I knew that the Rings of Power would be trash. As readers we shouldn't be forgiving people who use the stories we love to change them into what they wanted the story to be. We want to see Rand blasting trollocs and Myrddraal at Tarwin's Gap, we wanted to see the Shienarans hold their own in that battle, we want to see Nynaeve's struggles with the One Power and overcome them, not magically gain the ability to blast every trolloc in the Blight with 3 random women from some random Shienaran farm (and Agelmar's sister). In the Rings of Power we wanted to see the splendour of Numenor, the industry of Eregion, Galadriel actually ruling with Celeborn etc etc etc.... I get people want more content, but maybe we should accept that sometimes, less is more. We need people with actual passion, like Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, to adept these stories. D&D did a good job with Game of Thrones, until they ran out of story and wanted some other fancy project instead.
Writing is everything. Nothing can compensate for its lack of quality. Everything else is in service to it. Imagine cooking with rotten ingredients.
@@Elbownian Truth! 📣
I tried SO HARD to like the show.
I recently described it to a "new reader" of the series who had yet to watch the show thusly: after reading the books, the TV show is like having a VERY vivid dream about walking through your high school. Some things are VERY familiar and look right. Other things look out of place. A few things appear as something else entirely like you walk through a room that's actually your office as an adult, or a break room from the grocery store you used to work at in college.
Then, there are mostly the people you went to high school with. Some of them look exactly how you remember them then. Others are who they are now, but don't fit how they were back in high school. Still others are people like your old boss from the amusement park in your senior year of high school, and others are amalgamations of people, and that guy sitting in math class with you you don't even recognize.
It's to the point, I'm not even paying attention to the other channels talking about Season 3. It all feels like Tumbr fanfiction. *cough*Acolyte*cough*
Thank you for the rant. It’s cathartic. There is an interview/discussion with Brandon Sanderson (on UA-cam). He discusses how books are story driven but they are making episodic TV. I think it would add to your analysis. Great as always! Also- I think you had a health scare? If so, I hope you are doing better.
Doing much better. Thank you.
Hopefully I'll have S2 E5 done next week.
Logical inconsistencies and characters acting unnaturally, or in a way that seems forced to serve a certain goal is what really kills it for me. I suppose it boils down to not enough set-up, or too much tell rather than show, and these are symptoms that feel pervasive with a lot of storytelling these days. It really feels like there's either no talent at work, essentially just bad writers, or perhaps scripts are developed by committee, checking boxes that feel like they need to be hit, rather than following a unified vision. It is especially grating when dealing with an adaptation of something that DID have a single, unified vision like WoT.
It's unreasonable to expect a one-to-one adaptation of something as massive as the Wheel of Time, and naturally things have to be cut and changed to fit the framework, but that's a far cry away from taking the kind of liberties this show's runners take. It is clear to me now that a faithful adaptation was never the goal of the show, and unfortunately many of the choices made in its production directly and irreversibly sabotage the work down to its fundamentals. The original is a deeply compelling fantasy. I would struggle to say the show even fits the hero's journey archetype that lies at the foundation of the story. On the back of that, the stupidification of the plot and characters, the pandering, and the condescension are the scab over the wound, though no less offensive for it.
I am thankful that the show at least brought new readers to what is an incredible work of literature, but as a production it is bad, and as an adaptation it is worse.
Thanks to you for your videos on the topic, always engaging to watch.
I agree with all of this. I didnt get to mentioning characters acting out of character for the convenience of the plot, but that us a HUGE unforgivable sin, for me.
Malice was clearly demonstrated. Raffie told those of us who financially supported the franchise for decades, and advocated a show to friends and family that he was going to respond to criticism by changing the smexual preferences of main characters.
That was just so bad. I mean, when you are making a product beloved by many, you probably shouldn't attack those fans with a threat to radically change what they love.
The mystery that is spontaneously solved in the script leads me to one of Agatha Christie's rules: the reader needs the same information that the characters have in order to solve the mystery.
@jaycarlson5868 exactly! And Agatha Christie would be a noted expert in creating well-loved mysteries.
Not that Christie herself followed those rules - the first book where I went "hang on, we didn't know that!" was one of hers (I want to say A Caribbean Mystery)
7:19 ooh! I love that definition of objective likeability. That's not one that I've heard before, but it frames the entire discussion around likeable characters (and honestly likeable people 🤷♂️) in a way that adds to a more effective and enjoyable story (and world).
I noticed this rule when I was asking myself why people dislike some characters, even when they are the good guys. This formula has proven to fit just about every case.
Sometimes my wife will be watching a movie and say, "I really hate him (or her)." I reply, "That's because you're supposed to hate them. The writer did his job."
I miss your WoT reviews, I found them very cathartic.
The reason I released this video instead of my S2 E5 Review was because I had an accident with mynS2 E5 Review. I was about 75% done editing it, and accidentally deleted mkre than half of it. I was supposed to release it last weekend. Now it's looking like it will come out next week, instead.
It seems to me that this "modern generation" is hell bent on destroying every beloved novel there is. They have succeeded in getting me to quit watching TV and start investing in audiobooks. It's the best thing I've done.
I find myself enjoying audiobooks way more, too. I don't get excited about movies or shows anymore.
I would say that you are right, at least in terms of Sci-Fi and Fantasy.
SF/F (with the exception of some like Twilight and Hunger Games), tend to appeal to males far more than to females.
These franchises are successful, to varying extents, but often VERY successful, like Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Terminator, Indy Jones, and so on.
Then, there is a group of people who are angry, bitter, jealous, etc... and they are like spoiled rotten children, who can't abide someone else having something that they enjoy, so they want to steal it from them, or destroy it.
And... they get upset, when WE get upset, that they subverted something that we enjoyed.
It's like we bring a football to play a game, they swarm in and demand that we change all of the "rules" so that they can play... and then they get upset when we no longer want to play... even if we let them keep the football.
From what I understand, they've already done the same thing to the comic book industry, and are in the ongoing process of doing it to gaming, too.
These people always seem to belong to one of two groups, who are political and ideological allies.
One group is represented by those such as Darth Kennedy, Headland, Salke, Hissrich, PWB, Obaid-Chinoy, etc...
The other group is represented by those like R. Judkins, the guy who runs/ran Batwoke and the other DC shows on the CW network, Rian Johnson (?), and so on... I wonder how many of the s0yb0ys like Filoni, D&D (GoT show), and so on, ALSO belong in this same category...
@@Nyet-Zdyes At some point, they will have to figure it out.
Thank you for understanding and voicing my neverending frustrations with stories.
Personally, I can forgive forced undeserved plot points (even though irritating), but I cannot tolerate forced romantic storylines.
The video is so interesting and engaging (even though I've only watched season 1 and dropped the show) that I didn't even notice how half an hour passed 😮
Appreciate this video. Have had similar discussions with friends. Here are some reasons that might explain the degradation of story quality over the past 10+ years : 1) Corporate Influence: Profit-driven decisions by large entertainment corporations lead to overly "safe" and homogenized content focusing on a relatively small number of popular IPs; 2) Writer Constraints: Overworked writers and lack of creative freedom (e.g. forced to write about things they don't want to) result in rushed and subpar storytelling; 3) Short production cycles and increasing executive interference leading to inconsistent characterization and weak plot coherence; 4) Audience Perception: Changing tastes and high expectations due to nostalgia affect how new content is received; 5) Nepotism and Diversity Issues: Favoring (personally) familiar names over fresh talent and lack of diverse voices stifle creativity. These reasons are no doubt weighted differently from one example to another.
I have heard a lot of similar takes on the situation. Eventually, though, some folks will start doing it right, and the studios will see that they need to change how they operate.
This is a great format. Really enjoying it. You were right, by the way, it was Shadar Logoth, the ruined city where they got separated. Good luck with the livestream. Due to time zones, I won't be able to watch live, sorry.
Thank you ❤ Sorry you won't make the Livestream. It'll be up afterwards, though.
In the case of Wheel of Time, the underlying issues with the writing can be summed up with 1. the vehement refusal to follow the source material and 2. just plain incompetence of the writers.
The first one is baffling. After all, they had a complete, best selling story they could've just followed and everything would've been so much easier. Every fan was *hoping* they would do so, so that we could tell everyone who we can get to listen to watch the show; they would've had so much positive word of mouth and guerilla marketing for free! But after all the changes, it can't be denied anymore. They, for some reason, did their utmost best to discard the source material and not only that, they often even picked thematically the exact opposite options, which seemed almost spiteful. This caused a lot of those moments you described where people wouldn't just let the "smaller" mistakes slide anymore, because the show clearly wasn't even *trying* to be Wheel of Time.
This could've all been at least somewhat salvaged, though, if only the things they replaced the source material with had been any good. As you said, people are willing to excuse a lot as long as the final product is still good. It might've not been Wheel of Time, but at least it would've been a good *show.* If that had been the case, I'd wager a lot of people would've been more receptive to the whole "it's just a different turning" -cope, but now it just feels like insult to injury whenever someone tries to defend the show with that line.
The second point showed that the writers really bit off more than they could chew when they threw away the source material. Every single change, no matter how insignificant or fundamental, made the story worse and the setting more inconsistent than it would've been had they just followed the source material. The writers simply did not have enough skill to replace what Jordan wrote with something equally good, internally consistent and compelling. They forgot and broke their own established rules, or didn't even care about them in the first place. They set up potential plot threads with absolutely zero payout in the end. They didn't have enough confidence in their foreshadowing so they just decided to show the "foreshadowing" in a flashback and pretend that's the same thing. Jordan was a master in everything they failed at.
I don't know what causes this, is it executive meddling? Some weird modern way scripts are written as a group project where everyone just throws ideas at the wall and nobody bothers to keep track of their plotlines or even what they wrote for the previous episode? I find it very hard to believe that the writers would otherwise be professional and competent *if only* some mystery excuse X wasn't sabotaging them, so I'm inclined to believe that the reality is just that simple. The writers thought they could do better than a best selling author and they were wrong. Very wrong. To quote the writers themselves: The arrogance!
In general, when it comes to what's forgivable / what I can deal with I have a ranking system. The lower down the list the more forgivable it is, as long as what's above is good.
1: Characters. They have to be interesting, well written, with understandable motivations and actions.
2: Plot. It has to make sense, and it has to be driven by the characters.
(Combining 1 and 2, one thing that is virtually guaranteed to make me dislike a story is when characters do plot things just because the plot requires them to for the story to move)
3: (TV and films) Good acting. Acting rarely makes or breaks things for me, it's more that it can amplify what is already good or bad. (Though it can be quite fun to watch actors ham it up if the film is good enough)
4: Action scenes. They are, for the most part, supposed to help add to the plot and characters, it's not supposed to be what's really important.
5: (TV and films) Special effects. If the best thing you can say about a film is "it looks good" then it's a shite film. There are some great fun films with an airfix model and there are some utter trash with world class effects.
The one exception to this list is when it's supposed to be some mindless popcorn action film, at which point action goes to number 2 (though effects stay low)
@Valkanna.Nublet I'd say I mostly agree with all of this. But good VFX is something that can sell me if the story is at least "not bad". It can be generic or nothing super special, and I can be happy if the vfx are spectacular. But they better really be special.... like Avatar (blue aliens). I was willing to watch Alien Fern Gully Dances With Wolves for the pretty vxf more than once. I never used to think I would be okay with something so bland, but I really enjoyed the visuals.
I havent' read the books yet but you brought a number of things that bothered me while watching it. This was well thought out and I appreciate the in show examples.
@ASageCalledQ You are so welcome! I have not finished the books, yet (on book 4), but they are significantly better than the show, so far, and I hear they are chalk full of clues that we won't even notice until a second read-through of the whole series. I love rereadable books!
@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS A second read through? oh lord I just look at the number of books and like dang this is a commitment. T_T I'll get to them one day. lol
That's why I put it off for so long. Lol!
Thanks for doing these videos. All us long time readers need this cathartic release from the TV show.
Haha! You are so welcome. S2 E5 will hopefully be done next week.
Immediately. This show is unforgettable Immediately.
I've been re-reading Lord of the Rings after finishing a re-read of WoT and have softened my position a bit on the amount of changes between book and screen. I had not realized how much had changed with the LotR movies as it had been a long time between reading and movie for me.
That being said... I still can't stand the show. Some of the changes seem baffling and leave me confused on how a world works that I am so familiar with.
I felt that there were very few changes in LOTR movies that were bad. And the rest ofbit was so good, it vastly outweighed the bad.
@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS I agree. It was mostly a surprise at just how much was changed. I did miss Tom Bombadil, but that would have also been a big tonal shift. Same with just how many songs are in that book.
I literally watched the first season of part of season two of the show it so just solely so that while reading the audiobooks listening to the audiobooks, I can keep track of who is who. Putting a name to a face rather than trying to remember all of the names.
Excellent agree with your points. I'm always surprised you don't have a lot of thirty comments in your comment section, it must because your content is so good you attract a higher level of audience. Thanks for uploading
Lol. Thanks. I do try to keep it classy.
One thing I would like to comment about on the sacredness of franchise canon though, is that any mythology worth anything grows in the retelling, no matter how or why the retelling happens. Violating canon is different, though, and degrades the mythology and its meaning, belittles it. And exploiting canon by violating it for profit is philosophically very much like enslaving a religion. Contrasting Peter Jackson's LotR with The Rings of Power in this light is a great illustration of my perspective.
@willcool713 well said! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Its not even about convenience but outright preference on show runners part, fir example, the season one finale completely changed rand taking power from the eye of the world then using it to destroy the shadow spawn army, Why did they change it to the female cast doing it instead?
@@skullknight4579 A lot of people blame covid lockdowns, but I don't buy it. Amazon should have waited until they could film a better ending.
The opening statements of the first episode completely turned the lore upside down. It was a pit they dug and never climbed out. The foundation was faulty with the changing of the fundamental forces of the world. The second major mis-step was allowing for the possibility of a female dragon reborn... that was just stupidity of the highest order, when you consider the lore of the world. That was key to every interaction Rand had with other characters in the book, and within himself. Making this change just to have a mystery box was even worse.
Everything from that point onward was just digging the hole deeper. The "point of no return" was the entire episode about the warder, that didn't exist in the books. Despite having so few episodes to adapt the books, they displayed their priorities when they chose to introduce that whole thing.
How they justify spending a whole episode on madeup stuff, when they are already crunched for time, is a mystery. Any person on production who knows that it wasnt in the books would have known that it was a bad idea.
Thank you for articulating this so we'll. I gave up at the end of ep 1.
Unforgivable mistakes: Changing key aspects of the story for to insert non-canon material to seemingly no other reason than either pad the run time or delineate from the main source material because of ownership and publishing rights. Then there is changing the story in favor of changes that the new "writers" think are superior.
Also poor casting choices. This is one that can make or break an adaptation. Case and point with this show paralleled to LotR, none of these characters are memorable, impactful, or iconic enough to have any staying power within memory. Whereas Aaragorn play by Vigo Mortensen is probably one of the MOST iconic and memorable performances of all time. This is only made more impressive when you consider the entire rest of the cast are just as iconic to their purpose.
This stands in stark contrast to Wheel of Thyme, where the strongest actors are Daniel Henny and Rosamund Pike, but neither seem to be directed properly.
The last Unforivable is to not fully understanding the source material. There is no point in trying to adapt a book for a series if you will toss out more than half of the contents on the page as irrelevant to your purpose. We can take such adaptations as the 1996 Romeo and Juliet as an example here. The only things to really change were largely setting and time period. The core concepts, dialogue, and themes are not only intact, but stand out when juxtaposed against the drastically removed period in which the movie is set. The entire movie stood metaphor.
You are so right on all of these points. The one that baffles me most is when writers in Hollywood think they have better ideas than enormously successful writers who have already proven that their story works well.
I gave up on the show half-way thru the pilot episode..... Someone needs to make this show and make Robert' s memory brighter.
I just finished my first reading of the books. First to last non stop. Watched the first episode and NOPED out before it ended. Then this popped in my feed. Agree completely on the bad writing. Actually just horrible.
@bryang7950 you aren't missing anything good by not watching the show. If you want to know what happens, without giving Amazon viewing numbers, my videos summarize every scene.
Thanks for the great analysis 🥰🥰
I really enjoy how you explain the problems with the show:)
Thank you! Glad you enjoy 😊
Thank you!
You are so welcome! Thank you for the comment! 😊
As someone who learned about the books from the show I really liked the show. I found the casting, acting, and fights and animation really enjoyable. The weak story and writing was heavily carried by the actors doing there best. Especially the actress of Egwene in season 2.
Yeah, I have no complaints about the actors. Since storytelling is my expertise, it tends to stand out to me when choices are made that aren't as effective as those used in the source material. But there's nothing wrong with enjoying the show. I love plenty of shows that I will fully admit are terrible. 😅
Great video, it's always nice to have a little framework to assess these things by. I really like the "objective" likeability distinction you made wrt villains
I initially didn't like, but understood and forgave the shifting focus in season 1 from The Rand Show to more of an ensemble (which the series evolved into later).
Overtime, the execution has made me less forgiving. Season 1 finale was rough in that regard and Season 2 didn't do much to convince me I'm supposed to care about this guy as much as I did in the book.
Season 3 truly will be the show's last chance to convince me they'll do justice to any of his "Fuck Yeah Moments".
I'm already worried about Dumais Wells
It's a formula I've been refining for years. So far, it has been applicable to every popular or "well-written" character.
@@richardkern112I think the show would really benefit from examining the most important themes and arcs in each character and really make sure they give them a clear direction, with an obvious purpose for each season. The lacking focus for Perrin in S1 is an excellent example of their failing. I still don't know what lesson Perrin was supposed to have leanlrned between killing his wife and doing nothing to stop Padan Fain from taking the horn.
@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS exactly! I was just thinking, Perrin's plot shouldn't frustrate me *this* early on ;)
Thanks for giving me language for sticking with stories where I think the writing is terrible!
If iys too long and that is a problem for you, or tour voice, thsts cool.
If you think its too long for the audience, stop worrying about that. We can pause and come back later. Also, we tune in to here from you, so kore minutes is a good thing!
Agreed on Lan and Nyneave (and all your other points for that matter). The unlikely dynamic in the novels was a surprise, but the tension that led to the union made great sense. The issue with the show is that Lan wasn't given much agency and doesn't seem like a character who wants much at all.
I'm really confused by what they are doing with Lan. It's supposed to be that he has his own mission. But we don't hear anything about that, except one passing comment from Moiraine near the end of S1. It has been completely dropped, now. His whole purpose seems to be to try to get back together with Moirane.
Did not know Tina Fey had a youtube channel
@@malachilining2730 lol. Everyone says I look like Tina Fey. Apart from the glasses.... I don't see it.
@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS I think it's the eyes maybe lol tbh it's just at first glance that you look REALLY similar 😂 but hey not a bad doppelganger ammirite
Speaking from my heart
❤