I Wish They Hadn't Adapted The Wheel of Time | SPOILERY Thoughts On The Show [CC]
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- Опубліковано 7 вер 2024
- ❄️Hiii! I have read the first three books in The Wheel of Time and I watched the first season of the show on Amazon Prime. I thought it was a mess, watch to see why. Please me respectful in the comments! Thanks for watching!
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The writers didn't even know what the phrase "Dragon Reborn" means. They call Lews Therin the Dragon Reborn; that more than anything shows they didn't read the books, at least not carefully.
I don't think they even know
Dovie'andie se tovya sagain.
I watched up to the final episode and had the impression the writer/showrunner/whoever had not read the books.
You don't understand why the 2 Rivers was not supposed to be so diverse. It's was to setup the characters when they got out of their small town and shell shocked by how big and different the world really is, but that doesn't happen because they just mixed-up everyone for diversity standards of our world.
I have to disagree with you on what the show needed. You said it needed more time and money. Regarding money, GoT had only half the money that WoT did for the 1st few seasons and while I realize inflation is a factor the quality of GoT is light years ahead of WoT. I believe that GoT simply had better money managers who knew how to properly budget and knew who were the best people to hire to fulfill the various needs.
Regarding time WoT wasted so much time on new material that was unnecessary and did nothing for world and character building or plot development. Also you said Rafe aged up the characters to avoid a YA feel and then he goes and puts in a bunch of YA relationship crap with horrible dialogue. If all that wasted time had been used for more relevant things just think how much better this show could have been.
What I see is a show which lacks skill and experience in almost every possible area, and if the money wasn't spent on hiring great people to create it and build it, then I don't know where the money went. Amazon might need to do an audit to find that out.
egwene healing nynaeve with tears is literally the end of tangled
hahaha
I figured she was just passed out since she wasn’t as burnt as the other women, also her eyes weren’t burnt out.
💀💀
No because Tangled actually established that Rapunzel had some magic healing powers before.
This was more like the ending of Pokemon the first movie. Healing came out of nowhere.
One thing that has bothered me even though it's super low tier is how they said the Wisdom who taught Nynaeve was rejected by the White Tower basically because she was a peasant. But then like 2 episodes later we get Siuan's back story where she was the daughter of a fisherman & living in a hut?
The LOTR parallels really distracted me too. Last episode = Helm's Deep except you feel no stakes because everything's so rushed. 🥴
The white tower doesn't turn people away because they are peasants, that is just what Nynaeve said because that is the reason she thought they turned her away. The white tower only turns people away because they don't think a person is powerful enough.
this would have been fine if they had explained that Show Nyneave was wrong. But the writing is bad so it just seems incongruous
@@amys0482 Yeah, i was expecting Nynaeve or Moiraine to bring it up when they met Siuan, yet nothing.
@@neemarafi That's your explanation but not the shows. They could've just said it like that in the episode...
So many things that don’t make sense because of how they wrote the show 😫
I don't believe that the Rafer guy has even read the books much less is a fan of them. I watched another youtube video where they went through a doctoral dissertation on the marketing aspect of book adaptations and how adaptations are more readily accepted by book fans if they are convinced that the adapter is a book fan just like them. The idea is to build up something akin to political currency to offset changes that would otherwise offend the actual fans. After pondering that idea, it does tend to explain some of the nonsensical changes that were made by "big fan" Rafer "the Defiler of Story Lines" .
He is a fake book fan and just uses the books displayed on his background. Remember him saying Loial is his favorite. Now look what happened to Loial looking like a lion or the The Beast from Disney than an Ogier. Also, he faked death the guy stabbed with the very dangerous Shadar Logoth dagger. Rafe is cancer to the series.
I love book born to
I only got to episode 4, but I couldn't get over their effing clothes. HOW DID NYNAVEAH OR WHATEVER HAVE A PERFECTLY CLEAN LIL OUTFIT AFTER TRUDGING THROUGH THAT WATER & KILLING A TROLLOC & RUNNING THROUGH THE WOODS?!
Mostly though I just didn't care about anything that was happening at that point, and that means time to DEEEEEE ENNNNNN EFFFFFF!!!! lol
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 the outfits. THE OUTFITS. Half were renfair and half were from Zara
What about the Whitecloaks there wasn't even a smudge on those pure white uniforms. They might be religious extremist murderers but no one does laundry like those guys.
@@kityhawk2000 hahaha right???
Good observation. Lack of consistency.
One thing about the clothes that bothered me was the AES Sedai wearing dresses and skirts which is important because every time they used straightening their skirt or adjusting the Shawls or gripping their skirts portrayed them as nervous embarrassed etc
On the ethnic diversity in Edmonds Field; you're right that having everybody being white wouldn't fix all the shows problems. But that's missing the point.
The problem isn't that the characters weren't all white, it's that having such an ethnically diverse cast for the villagers doesn't make any sense. This is a remote village in the middle of nowhere, that has little contact with the outside world. It isn't a bustling trading port or metropolis. That much ethnic diversity simply doesn't make sense, except as an exercise in ideological box-ticking.....of which there is a lot in this show.
I feel the same. Have all the diversity in the world in big cities, in Tar Valon, within the people who are travelling, not within the farmers in Emond's Field. And how is Rand supposed to look out of place (in the first book people often talk about it) in Two Rivers with this much diversity in there? That being said I'm sure there are people who genuinely complained about it for racist reasons and over the top diversity is one of the least important issues with this show.
Yep. It robbed the show of the changes (and characters) to be made and met later.
The book describes clothes, accent and sometimes even skin color for people to tell where there are from, in that way you could have diversity. As said the cities have people from everywhere so they could always be diverse.
For example the Borderlands (Shienar) was not very diverse it was mostly Asian, that is a good thing because that makes it so we could easily identify borderlanders. If they do this with all the nations then it would be diverse and more interesting then everything being the same.
I think that ethnic diversity in two rivers indicates a high rate of incest, as they would have otherwise melded into one homogenous ethnicity if they had to marry someone who was greater than first cousin in separation.
@@TFAric it depends on which part of the Borderlands. Saldeans & Kandor are described as Asian, but Arafel dark haired light skinned with some Eastern European feel and Shienar are light haired light skinned people with Shienarians styled after Cossaks. Tear is described as very diverse.
Yes it's soooooooooooooo far off source materials I've given up...
Some shows can adjust from 1st season flaws & failings while exploiting strengths like the Witcher did. This show has REALLY botched certain strengths right off making me VERY dubious on season 2.
I just can't visualize a 'save' here...
I've read the leaked script for episode 1, i sadly feel like more episodes would have probably meant only more filler (Egwene's braid ceremony is more extra than what we saw)....
All the fake out deaths were the absolute worst. The showrunner had to come out and say Nynaeve was like 4 out of 10 burned out (...what?) and that Egwene didn't resurrect her, and that another character we love is, yeah, alive. Rafe, if it's not meant as a mystery and you have to come out after the episode to explain it, than you have done a bad job at showing it. It completely ruins the stakes for the future, since there will be some moments were you are really on the edge about it. But after all this random fakes out? There will be zero suspense.
Seriously what is the point with all of these “near deaths”??
@@JessOwens shock value. #wreckitrafe
I hope they are paying Rosamund Pike a lot because 80% of the acting in this show is her just staring into the camera, emoting with her eyes.
LITERALLY THO 😂😂
I agree with so many of your thoughts. Have you read Brandon Sanderson's comments on the show? He's talked about it a bit on reddit, and his feedback makes me wish they had listened to him more. I've read the entire book series and there's a lot of changes that just don't make sense to me, especially considering the implications later on in the series. That ending was such a mess
No, what did he say?
@@moustik31 From what i remember he was very against Perrin having and killing a wife. He suggested if they really wanted to go that route to have him injury master Luhhan instead. He thought adding the girls as DR candidates was a change to the lore with no pay off (i mean, they hyped up Nynaeve all season, and in the end it was obviously going to be the whitest man of the group😅). He thought they should have shown Nynaeve and Egwene actually fail at using the power in the last episode, so that it would show the need for their training at the Tower. He didn't have the chance to see the script for the last 2 episodes though.
There was probably something else, but he was being really nice about it despite him clearly not being on board with some choices.
@@bluelight17 Thank you so much for all this. Sounds to me like a smart man with a love for the show to be the best it can possibly be.
@@moustik31 No problem! Looks like Lan was also not going to do much in the first episode in one of the early scripts, but Brandon insisted he showed off at least a bit of sword skills...i seriously don't get the show decisions, you have a character who's the best swordman in the book and you don't use it? He pretty much doesn't use the sword in any other episode, if they cut that part he wouldn't really have anything.
@@bluelight17 What a mess 😳
I love that no one has to clarify "the season we don't talk about" in reference to GOT. You are too funny. I have not read this series nor seen the show and the way you've talked about it, I may not.
Should be the final 4 seasons we dont talk about tbh...
@@giuf175 Nah Just one season....
Read the books. They are the definition of epic fantasy. Do NOT use this show, seen or unseen, to determine whether to read the books, as they are 97% unrelated.
@@timcotton1782 I have started reading the books, and they are good. But WOT proves that just because the book series is complete, doesn't mean that the adaptation will be good. GOT is still better.
Agreed that the editing is a mess. My husband who did not read the books pointed out that all the scenes are like 1-2 minutes long and make the whole thing feel abrupt and rushed.
I must say I'm not surprised. I'd have found it really surprising if the series had received a glowing review. It is my opinion that the whole movie industrie in the US just doesn't know how to show respect to a source material, whichever it may be, and for some mysterious reason they always feel the need to add/remove elements in a way that makes no sense whatsoever. I hardly watch any movies, but if I decided to change that, I'd avoid book adaptations like the plague.
In the books the only one who can "resurrect" people is the Dark One, because he's the Lord of the Grave. And resurrection is in quotation marks, read what he does. No one else can do that, death is not possible to be healed. A great scene explains that in book 4, very dramatic.
There's one way, involving time travel / rewriting time, to kind of reverse death, but it's complicated and can destroy reality, so it kind of happens by accident in the books. So no one in their right mind would try to do that to resurrect someone.
I started the books in preparation for the show but holy moly!
I only made it about halfway through they first episode, the way they started things out of order set it off on bad footing for me. The beginning was so important and they messed it up.
The fourth book is arguably the best. You should try that one and give up if you don't like it.
Definitely going to read it soon!
I was so excited to watch this with my partner because he hasn't read the books and I have, but I found myself at the end of about every episode saying "ok they didn't explain this well, but..."
I just feel like the whole season was filled with monologues that didn't mean anything and didn't explain anything that was actually going on with the world 😒 super disappointed with the adaptation. I almost rage quit the season after the episode that spent the entire time on Sad Warder (I don't even remember his name lmao) and didn't progress the storyline at all
Yes. My partner has read the series at least three times. I was constantly asking him questions throughout. I tried to read the series but the pacing in the first book is just…ugh, but his explanations made it seem way more interesting than the show. Lol.
@@whyaleichia this! I don't believe those non-book readers as well as book fans saying that season 1 was awesome and showrunner did an excellent job. Lmao these rafe apologists are pretenders.
@@theabhorrentchef7226 Hi, in response to your question about the use of "partner", I make an effort to use it because it helps to normalize it. The term is often used with same-sex or nonbinary partners, but I use it as a straight cis person with my straight cis partner to, like I said earlier, make it more commonplace. Not offensive at all to use binary terms like girlfriend/boyfriend! I still call my partner "my boyfriend" frequently too. It's a personal choice for everyone.
I found myself pausing it every 15 minutes to explain to my wife wtf was going on. She hadnt read the books, and was lost. Of course half the time I had to be like "dont ask me, this shit isnt in the books" idk why they felt they needed to add 3 hrs of filler to an 8 hr runtime for a 600 plus page book.
I mean, Peter Jackson through a ton of fluff in the 9 hour hobbit movies, but it was based off a pretty short book and the studios insisted on a grand epic trilogy.
I actually believe that the show would have made more sense if they started with New Spring. That would help understand Eye of the World. I get why you like the diversity of the cast, but if you continue reading the rest of the series you will find out that the books are full of diverse characters- like the windfinders and Tuan.
This! I've read or listened to the books a TON of times (someplace over 40), Diversity is there, strong women, different cultures, different languages, different races, it's all there! We didn't need to deviate from the original in order to put these in. We didn't need a revision, they just needed to cut out some the drawn out parts of the books.
@@sdube001 Its not enough to have diversity anymore. You must also make the characters that are considered non diverse look as dumb as possible. They destroyed the three boys for no reason
I don't think that its necessary to start with new spring?? admittedly I haven't read it yet so I don't know how good of an intro it is, but I was firmly told to go nowhere near it until mid way through the series. Why do people assume EOTW isn't a good starting point, its THE start point, no? I never once felt confused or like I didn't understand what was going on outside of when RJ wanted the reader to be a little confused, I feel like a faithful adaptation where they bothered to show how the world operates and works would've captured the newcomer to the series just like the first book did (that is it's main job after all)
Will Edgeler its not necessary to start with new spring. The reason I think starting there might be helpful is that it doesn't have as many moving parts as eye of the world - it focuses on moiraine ,her mission, how that mission started, and how Lan got dragged into it.
@@ronmoak329 Ahh ok yeah I can see where you're coming from, basically using aspects of new spring to streamline EOTW
I agree with you. The prologue would have set the tone for the series in a way that would have drawn everyone in. One of my biggest gripes is that we do not get Rand's legit fear of going mad. He could have known who he was while everyone else thought anyone of the five was the dragon. Rand here was just very bland, not good for an MC. Plus it looks cheap.
I have my issues with the book but Robert Jordan has a flair that was just absent here. It's rather sad cos it is a rich story. The fans would have stuck around. New fans would also love the laying of a good foundation.
I'm a book fan, not a die hard fan as the Aiel waste and the caricature female characters scarred me. I am hoping the show improves.
Not only the fear of going crazy, but the show runners also left out all the conflict with Tam and how very distressed Rand felt just thinking he couldn't be his biological son.
The prologue would have been such an amazing start
"What are y'all doing?" I'd say that sums it up pretty well.
“$5 left over for Loial” lol. I’m still in tears girl. I stumbled across your channel just now and I’m now a fan. I agree with everything you said about this disappointing adaptation of WoT.
😂😂😂
I dropped after episode 3. It was a dumpster fire that seemed actively misandrist. Completely missed the point of the series where men and women need to work TOGETHER.
from the books the rule of resurrection is: never do that. you can't do that. you must not do that. you are right that choices they are making are going to make season 2 really hard to write and hard to watch. good critique, Jess Sedai. :)
I am not bothered the slightest by the actors skincolor, sexual orientation. I am not even bothered by the clean sets or perfect clothes.
All i want is that they follow the books story and not making their own story. But since they do not follow the story and actually destroying the boys developements and the magic system while empowering the girls story where it is not necessary because the girls are really good written and powerful in the books already.
Follow the books and dont weave in stuff that that isnt in the books like the warder death.
I'm so glad you mentioned the darker = evil. I ranted about that to my husband. I like diversity in all aspects, even villains, but this was noticeably bad. And anyone who is upset at the cast diversity didn't actually pay attention to the book descriptions of various characters. They aren't all white in the books. Also, one of the things that drove my husband crazy (he didn't read the books) was how people would have dirty faces but spotless clothes and he hated the sets as well... so you aren't the only one.
Edit: One more thing that really bothered me about the resurrection with Egwayne was that in the books she's specifically a bad healer. In the books she could never do anything close to that. Her power was strong elesewhere.
Stage set: characters put on their clean costumes, lined up to dirty their faces in a bucket of dirt...
She's good at making and researching sangreal and all that ...healing was crap....also she wasn't black or brown.
Fans of the books wouldn't complain about diversity because the books ARE indeed full of diverse characters. It's HOW the diversity is implemented. The Two Rivers people have a distinct look to them, specifically being from a rural, isolated village the population would likely be very homogeneous.
So again, diversity isn't the problem, it's how it's being used here that is the problem.
I mean, they aren't all white, but I feel it's safe to assume that in the first book, which was written as a by the author self-confessed Tolkien rethread, he probably went with the assumption that everyone in the Two Rivers looked white. It doesn't bother me that the show decided to be more in line with modern audiences, but I feel the attempt at imagining that Robert Jordan was more progressive than he actually was is a bit misplaced. Almost no one's skin tone is described as part of their initial description, except when it is distinctly not white like with the sea folk. What that tells me is that in Jordan's mind, the default setting for his fantasy world, like most fantasy fiction written up to that point, was majority European inspired and white.
@@retro2103 As I remember from the books, everybody in the Two Rivers had the same look, and it made the fact that Rand looked different significant as he tried to puzzle out whether Tam was really his father, if he has actually been born in the Two Rivers, and if he was the Dragon Reborn.
Because I read the books over the course of 18 years, and I was OCD about remembering what was going on whenever a new book came out, I've read the first six books six times each, books 7-11 three times each, and each of the last three books once (so far) -- and I absolutely agree with your comments. I'm not even a fan of the, IMO, forced representation among the Two Rivers kids in the show, but having Padan Fain and Eamon Valda, two of the most evil characters imaginable, being played by black actors sort hit me in the face. Both are fine actors, but, really? Thom Merrilin could have been played by a black guy, and he's heroic. And I agree with your other points as well -- TERRIBLE writing, awkward editing, poor story choices, uneven pacing... the list goes on and on. Nicely stated. Subscription earned.
💜💜 thank you ! The writing is so bad and yes why not make Thom Black ? It’s just an entire mess
subbed, Real Fans respect the source material. The diverse changes worked out worst. Rafe mistreated Perrin so much and Loial. Loial is Robert Jordan inserting himself into the book and to stab him with that dagger. Lore breaking and another fakeout death for s2. Rafe wrote a hate you letter to Jordan.
Not opening with the prologue. This change alone was very damaging. Then the changes to Matt, making him a dour thief. Perrin, a brooding grunting third wheel who kills his wife in a fridge. Then the changes to Lan using lines of his from book 12 or 13 into season 1 without the relationship buildup. Fire Rafe who did 1000+ changes too many! Hire Arcane showrunners.
Good points and also feel like you have a good attitude towards adaptations.
Also I've given up on removing glare from my glasses, it's so hard 😭
Thanks !! It’s almost impossible to not have a glare on glasses 😭
So I agree with on alot of your points on this show being doomed and failed but the writers, director, and editors. But I will fight you on the colorism subject. Yes, they didn't have to make the main cast all white. But they should of chose a color people for the the majority of the cast so Rand and Nyeave, would stand out more like they do in the books. Because there's plenty times in the book and shoe where people say I can tell your from the two rivers! And I'm like how lol. They don't dress any different, they don't speak with a different accent than anyone else. And sense everyone is multicultural mixed in, skin and hair color means nothing. So when Loaiol told Rand he was Aieil, I was like how can you tell dat lol?! Haal dar is predominantly Asian, like it's supposed to be. And nobody complains about that. Why aren't there more Indians, blacks, and whites there? My whole point is the show writers took on a show where you need to establish a cultural differences and didn't even bother. I'm a black dude from the south in the Midwest. People can tell I'm southern from my talk, swag, and world views. I can tell another brother is from Virginia, Alabama, Mississippi, New York, California, Philadelphia, Detroit, and many more places from how they conduct themselves. Honestly, I had rather the cast be all white, because I don't like any of them, outside Loaiol, and the villains. There the only really interesting characters and actors right now lol. And the dude that played the dark one. Bring him back, he killed his performance along with Padding Fain. More of these two, pls🤞🏾
The guy playing Padan Fain was awesome. I like Fares Fares as well, but I didn't really like the scenes.
Loial can tell Rand is Aiel, but they just cast a black woman as Aviendha.
Make it make sense.
@@qmulus1 I can't, because there isn't sense to be had. This is about to be a legendary shit show 😂😂😂
Pretty much everyone not from the two rivers knew Rand was Aiel because they are the only natural gingers in that world. All of them are red heads.
Like you said, that world is very segregated.
@@bobbycecere1037 red hair runs in the royal line of andor as well, but otherwise correct.
The show was awful, no argument there, I've been at war with it since the casting announcement, but you really need to read the rest of the series before you judge the veracity of homogeneity in the Two Rivers.
They replaced a well thought out magic system with Tinkerbell magic (clap your hands and believe). My hope was that the source would be divided by the soul and not the body--just so happens most of the female magic users drew from the clean side and most of the male magic users drew from the tainted side but give us a few instances where a male soul was in a female body and vice versa (trans channelers!)--btw, there was precedent for it in the books! Pretty much agreed with everything you said.
Yes! The magic system is so much better in the books and they really made it so basic
I'm a trans woman and I completely disagree I am tired of them pushing it ..wot has one solid instance to take a deep dive into the pain of GID THE instance you describe. Wheel of Time has a gender-based magic system there is no one born naturally with gender dysphoria. The only instance where this occurs is the result of the dark one being sadistic towards someone. Personally as a trans woman I love this I'm tired of us only being shown through this amazingly positive viewpoint and never actually touching on what we go through or what it's like to have the wrong body. I feel like by constantly pushing us to the front as if oh this is perfectly fine and it's not really a big deal makes light of what we actually are and the struggles we go through. If they're going to put a trans person in The wheel of Time it should be that one person who gets tortured by the dark one and they should really delve into what it's like to have gender dysphoria to the point where every moment is suffering and you have to have surgeries to your body to make yourself feel better. I never see the pain of gender dysmorphia displayed on television and I think the wheel of Time has the perfect opportunity to do it the dark one literally resurrects one of his minions in the body of a woman to torture a chauvinistic man pig. It's perfect. Reposting this comment disclosing my identity in the hopes that it will be left here unlike the last I believe that all opinions are valuable. Even if you don't agree with me I would hope you respect my feelings as a trans woman on the subject of trans women
The "precedent" in the book is from a Forsaken being resurrected in a different body from memory. That's not trans person, it's a brain transplant.
Besides, the very fact that this character appears to be unique in that regard is an important plot point. The female channelers can't detect her at all and the males one's (who could never *see* the channeling like the females could) never suspect her when they feel her making weaves. She's an aberration. Gender essentialism is baked into WOT.
@@arisvideodrop3595 cis person here, and this is pretty much the same conclusion I came to. I completely agree.
@@Golmov_the_Wretched it's kinda the reverse of the usual trans arc expected. Instead of being born what seems to be the wrong sex (or assigned at birth, or whatev) and going through a change to match their inside on the outside, it's a cis person suddenly getting punished with the conundrum a trans person has. They aren't trans just because they change sex, they are trans because they experience dysphoria. Their identity, and soul, does not match their body. And magic is a thing of the soul.
Also, I've been hearing there's actually scientific evidence that supports that a trans woman (a MtF individual) and a man have some measurable differences in their brains. I haven't personally gotten to looking into it yet, so I can't confirm with absolute certainty, but if that is true it invalidates whatever your argument is.
I’ve read The Wheel of Time series three times (because I’m a total loser lol.)
After the second episode I started calling the adaptation The Wheel of WTF Did I Just Watch?
Unfortunately they already filmed half the episodes for season 2, so i doubt there will be an actual improvement. They seem to be mixing up book 2 and 3 but i have no idea how.
Rand left at the end of ep 8, so i guess no hunt for him? Maybe it will be only Perrin going after Padan Fain, not sure how they can bring Mat back in. The girls will probably be at the Tower and then the Seanchan plot. I've seen rumors of Rand going to the Aiel waste, but it makes no sense, it's way too early. And he didn't even have a single sword lesson with Lan (how didn't Lan mention his sword even once? All the soldiers in Caemlyn treated Rand like the most dangerous person in the room when they saw it!). For all Rand knows he has beaten the DO already, how do they get him back on track?
OT The Shadow Rising is so good, easily a fan favorite, hope you enjoy it!!
Oh dear god, already filmed half ?? 🙃🙃🙃
@@JessOwens Before this season started i was so happy they were already filming the second. Now....nope. They could have gone back and fix at least the last episode, but with 4 episodes already finished...
I have loved the Wheel of Time books for 10 years now, and while I wish the show was a thing I could love wholeheartedly without criticism... it's not. So I appreciate your own criticism and opinions.
Perrin and his actor were both done so dirty. The showrunner had an idea of what he wanted to do with him, but I can't abide by the executive choices made. Giving him a wife just to kill her? Making his conflict be between creating and killing, but then not following through on it to a narrative conclusion? Forcing Perrin to have feelings for Egwene that she didn't even know about? And that are again never brought up again?
I also think the show lacked a cohesive theme to tie it all together. Things happened that threw the main characters from one side to another, but none of it is reflected in a singular way that satisfies the narrative.
I could go on for ages about all the things they should've done but I'll say this. The Eye of the World is a hot mess, with pacing issues, vague understanding of the magic system, poor characterization, and an incomprehensible finale. If anything, I wanted the show to fix the issues with the book, since they had a play by play of what NOT to do. They didn't take that opportunity, and it's disappointing.
Yes ! I enjoyed The Eye of the World but it can use improvement and that’s what I looked for the show to do, but they made it messier !
Perrin was done dirty? What about Mat? They did a complete character assignation on him by changing him from the character you hated to love to a complete and utter scum bag. They completely removed the agency and motivations of the male characters in favor of the female ones. It was clear that Rafe and Co. had not understanding or respect for the characters or source material.
@@williamjones3534 Completely agree! I just didn't feel like continuing my rant in a comment that was already getting long. Mat was done a complete disservice, but this was compounded by the actor leaving the show 3/4 through filming. (That further hindered Perrin's aborted character development, by giving him what was likely going to be Mat's role in the finale. And that horrible editing!) At least in my humble opinion, no one but Robert Jordan can write Mat correctly, combining roguishness with honor and playfulness. So them messing up Mat doesn't feel like a great surprise or an awful betrayal.
And to your point about the male characters (agencies) getting shafted in favor of the female characters- possibly. I would agree with you more, but it's not like Egwene or Nynaeve were given satisfying arcs, acceptable characterization, or even *stuff to do*. Perrin's actions were foolishly given over to the considerations of not one but two women who (as we book readers know) have no future bearing on his life. Disappointing! Rand's "confrontation" with the guy in the frumpled violinist's garb in the finale at least sort of happened in the books.
And I think the title for the character given the absolute worst treatment still goes to Thom. The man in the show just has bad vibes, bad aura, and bad hair. They missed the mark totally on him.
@@ageoftheexile For the most part I agree with you. Especially with regards to very lengthy responses.😉
I was so angry and disappointed with UA-cam people like Daniel Greene and nae'blis And how they tried so hard to talk up this adaptation that I wrote dissertations on their comment section. What was funny about it was the fact that they did not allow what I wrote to be shown. There is so much wrong with this adaptation from the writing,the direction, to what I feel to be inherent sexism and racism with their casting.choices. Those things alone merit an entire dissertation. While I am very much for diversity one of the biggest issues I have is how Hollywood is how does it. It's not from a good place or done organically. it's diversity in terms of deflection. I say that because Of the comment in the video about people people being angry about the characters not being white. As a writer myself if I have characters who are of a specific race or ethnicity it was intended that way and I would expect that to be honored in a visual medium. I don't want someone else coming along is wrong and feeling as if they have the right to change what I wrote I wrote because it doesn't fit their idea of current year politics. I Digress. The point is I agree with you there's so much wrong with this show it's very easy to write paragraphs what went wrong how and why.I will push back a little on the issue of Matt. Jordan left A detailed blueprint in terms of the world how people dressed as well as very as well as very realized characters. I think a good writer could have done Robert Jordan Justice in terms of The characterization of Matt. Would it have been exactly the same as what Robert Jordan would have done? No. Because it's 2 different people writing it and you could never truly know someone's mind. However Matt could have been written so that readers could have Seen very little difference.. The problem in my opinion was that Brandon Sanderson was not the writer up for the task. I have read A few of Brandon Sanderson's books. He has his flaws just like Robert Jordan did. His Robert Jordan was an excellent world builder and writer of good characters. Brandon Sanderson is an excellent world builder however the man cannot write characters to save his life.So I understand why Harriet mcdougall chose him to finish the series. I just wish she had picked not one writer but 2.. Sanderson to write the world And another that could have done a much better job with writing the characters in a manner that was more similar to Jordan. Now the writers and show runner? It's clear these people have neither the skill the talent or the respect to do Jordan's world and the Characters proper Justice.In my opinion this should never have been adapted.I feel if you're not going to do something right then Then it shouldn't be done at all.
I can't say I agree with all your points, but good analysis. I certainly agree 100% that the show is a mess. Resurrection being impossible for anyone but the Creator is a rule of the magic system. Even if you decide to drop that rule for the show, now the girls can do anything with the One Power with no training. How can they grow going forward? Also, Jordan had a better explanation for Perrin's conflict with violence in his out of control killing of Whitecloaks. I don't know how someone does what Perrin did in the show and not just stay with the Tinkers and the Way of the Leaf.
I would have preferred for all the Emond’s Fielders to at least look similar to each other. How I always read about the Two Rivers is that to the North and the West there’s nearly impassable mountain ranges and to the south it’s bogs and swamps and you need either a barge or bridge to cross the Manetherendrelle on the Eastern side. It’s about as isolated a location can be in a medieval setting so having it be multiethnic didn’t make sense to me. And similar to that Fal Dara is a fortress city right next to the Blight, so it really should have been populated only by ethnic Shiennarans and a few traders from other lands.
What I didn't like the most, as a book fan, about the "Dragon Reborn Mystery Box" is that Egwene is *AMAZING* in the first book. She's full of wonder and agency. She WANTS to go with the group, to go on an adventure. She doesn't know she can channel yet, she just wants to get out of her small town. And I think by making her a Ta'veren (though the show never explains what that is) and a potential Dragon that they removed that agency and that independent streak. I think that including her in that little mystery box actually weakened her as a character.
As someone who hasn’t read the books (I just started the first one!) but watched the show - I was confused and a lot of it felt anti-climactic. I watched the last episode and was like “THAT’S IT?!?” Felt like we were building to some great boss fight and we just get whiney Rand crying over a hallucination that we all know wasn’t real and he knew wasn’t real so who cares if hallucination Egweyn dies?
Also the sets looked bad a lot of the time (I think this maybe had a lot to do with how they over-lit a lot of scenes. Totally fake looking and it looked like they were re-dressing the same sets over and over. And omg those trollocs. 😒 When you’ve got Amazon $$$, I expect more.
That being said, I watched and will continue to do so. Also thought Rosamond Pike and Daniel Henney were great. It also got me to pick up the book so that’s good, right?
The battle at the Eye is completely different in the book. Confusing, but still better than what we got, with Rand actually showing his strenght.
Yes ! Anticlimactic is the perfect word !!
As a book reader, this show lost me. I hope it fails so we can get a faithful adaptation somewhere down the road.
I agree they should have opened up with the prologue. It would have been epic and explained so much. For me the prologue is the reason I’ve wanted to keep reading the series. That cold opening on the show was hard to follow and a huge let down. When they did this I knew this show was going to have problems. Bad writing I agree!
…and $5 Liol. LOL. Actor amazing but bad makeup.
The most accurate WOT analysis Jess. Love your takes, this was a misstep trying to chase GOT hype and fulfill the empty slot it left behind
They really were trying to be the new GOT and that’s not what WoT is !
Its defiantly not the lack of money that the problem but with how it is spent. If you dont have all the money in the world it beed to be used sparingly. High budget for the OG opening Be low budge 1-7 then blow everyone away with an explosive final. Its just that none of the leaders of the production have any idea of money management. It doesnt take 10,000 to change the color of a strand of power from white to brown or red
Yea my husband and I watched it and I agree with the resurrection troupe. It reminded me of ACOMF. Low stakes, low interest from me. GOT got it right. When people died, they were dead, dead and you had to mourn them.
It seems like all my problems with the series has to do with things they changed from the books. I haven’t read the books but now after hearing you talk about it, I may read them and let the series go for now.
Well, to be fair, Jon Snow was resurrected she Beric Dondarrion was killed and resurrected a few times before death stuck.
@@mikouf9691 true; I thought about it after I posted the comment lol
@@mikouf9691 But they were sparse at least. In Wot there have been more fake out deaths in one season than in all of Got.
Thank you for talking about the colorism. Oh, even Brandy Sandy was disappointed they created a wife for Perin just to fridge her.
He flat out told them not to, they didn't listen.
So he doesn't have a wife in the books? Deep sigh. And it's never said why she didn't go to Egwyne's ceremony at the beginning. Jealousy that Perrin loves Egwyne? Sheesh, what a mess.
@@brooke5258 Perrin does have a wife in the books. I think we meet her in book 3. Naturally, Perrin being Perrin, it takes a while before they get married.
- sj
@@slickjack2618 so they changed it in the show to... give him a trauma arc?
@@brooke5258 Yep. It was a fridge job. I really don't understand why they did that to Perrin.... they cut out all the interesting parts about him, and turned him into a wife-slayer. He did kill a couple of White Cloaks later in Volume 1. That managed to have lasting ramifications for the next few volumes - I forget how many, but it seems the showrunner, in his inestimable wisdom, decided not to include any of those parts.
- sj
I hard agree with everything you were saying (especially the scene with Rand and Tam OMFG!). I really would love to get tipsy with you and rant about it. You can even record it. 🤣
Omggg 🤣🤣🤣🤣 yesss
I laughed so hard when you described how Moraine was like “oh ok I’ll grab my bag” when Rand is like “I am the chosen one” 🤣 You made me want to read the first book just to see how it should have been adapted 🤦🏼♀️
The first 3 books should be Rand going “I am not the chosen one, I am not the Chosen one…” and everything else going “Rand you are the chosen one!”
Ignore Erik Runge Madsen, there is a lot more to the books than what he describes. If you like audio books, don't hesitate to get the Wheel of Time on audio book. The narration is done by a male and a female narrator, both are excellent.
@@nate2838 You're right about there being a huge amount more going on, but that is the simplified version of Rand's attitude for those first few books. He (understandably) doesn't want to be the "chosen one" because no-one in that setting who isn't already insane wants to be that guy. It takes those first three books for him to come to terms with it.
As far as rands attitudes it's like 2 books of rand refusing to believe hes the dragon reborn despite massive proof to the contrary, 1 book of him accepting he is the dragon reborn and deciding to run away from it. 2 or 3 books of him being angry and sullen about his fate. 1 book about him making terrible decesions that harden him. And the rest are him maturing and growing in power as he unites more of the world in preparation of the last battle.
The author had stated from the beginning he leaned heavily on tolkiens tropes, and wanted to see what it would really be like for a naive country bumpkin to be forced into chosen one status against his will like frodo or bilbo. Rand is like 19 when hes told he will be responsible for saving the world from essentially the devil, and that he will destroy the world in the process of saving it. It's enough to make any young man shit his pants in fear and regret.
Of course, dozens of other characters have complete arcs in these books as well.
That scene with a trolloc eating another trolloc was terrifying and confusing
Wait people are blaming the diverse casting for the problems with the show? The actors are the best part. While I feel more positively about the show than you do, I think your critiques are 100% valid. the only episode that really bothered me was the finale, which was awful. Hopefully they can fix the problems in season 2 because they do have a good cast to work with.
The books had a diverse cast anyways but some people are a little dense. The cast seems good. For world building I think it would have made sense to make everyone in the Two Rivers one mostly homogenous race because Rand looking very different from everyone else was important for the first book. Or just make Rand look incredibly different from everyone so it makes sense. But the cast's abilities in the role are more important than looking exactly right so that's fine.
I really only made it a few episodes in but I couldn't stand the show on its own or as an adaptation. They tossed out so much of the plot and characterization and replaced it with some nonsense. I guess they'll reconcile it as some point with the original world but I got the feeling they didn't want to actually adapt Robert Jordan's world. This happens with adaptations a lot, but it's annoying when so much of the original content gets trashed and it's still supposed to be an adaptation. I'm also with her, the actors are being hamstrung by crappy writing. You can't act well if you're being directed to act in a nonsensical way.
On top of that, the set design is not great and half of the costumes don't fit the actors. They also mostly look like cheap crap. Even some of the hairstyling looks like garbage. LotR and GoT looked amazing and had decent scripting most of the time. Even where they adapted away massive plot points it at least made sense for the adaptation (especially with LotR). Until GoT's finale at least. But whatever. I honestly might give up on watching fantasy and scifi adaptations.
A minority of people feel this way. It's the same people who always complain about diversity in entertainment, esp. if it's different from the books.
I get why people would want characters to look how they are described in the books but when they say it ruins the show because people aren’t white that’s just silly. Acting is more important.
The cast is the only reason i would be sad to see the show cancelled, they seem like a genuine nice and funny group.
The problem is the writing and the odd plot choices. The last episode was so bad, if only they could refilm it i would be a bit more positive for future episodes. But since they already filmed half of the second season...
@@tiryaclearsong421 was about to be pissed that you said the costuming for got was great but then you excluded the final season so I’m good now.
In the books it is clearly stated multiple times that you cannot heal death ... The only character to survive death is mat and that was prophesied/ devine intent...more about mat in the tv show he is depicted as shady, lazy, greedy and such a coward he would leave his friends for life to whatever their fate for money and power. 100% wrong......Yes he was conflicted and did not want to be in danger on the journey and was questioning what his part in it was. Yes he liked to have fun play dice, chase girls and explore cities.. However in the book even though Mat was infected buy the dagger he stood by Rand saved his life and continued the journey.. whenever the girls needed help Mat was there for them even after they treated him unkindly . In book 4 Mat literally & knowingly ran towards his own death " same as perrin" and in my opinion throughout the journey he is the literal definition a reluctant hero.
I agree. As to two rivers folks all I know is they had dark eyes and hair and Rand looked odd among the two rivers folks.
Even though there are some slow parts, I strongly recommend trying to finish the books. Things can take a long time to be resolved, but the payoff is more than worth the effort, especially in the last book. However you think current situations will go, there are almost always twists, turns, and consequences that weren't expected, and results that may not be as they seem. I am currently on my 16th time through the books, and I still catch details, and foreshadowing that I had previously missed.
The writers of the show seem to be more interested in their own unrelated ideas rather than adhering to the original story. They waste too much time with things to help viewers understand things they don't need to know yet, and leave out things needed to explain what is currently happening. They are also attempting to be clever with hints and foreshadowing to raise questions and interest in non-book readers, but often fail because the ways they do so are things only book readers could understand, but mean nothing to those new to WoT, leaving their questions unanswered.
I feel the rage for Loial!
They cast the perfect actor for the part and then went “lets make him look like garbage, cheap garbage at that.”
Loial is said in the books to stand eye to eye with Perrin mounted on a horse. That would make him around 8½-9½ ft tall because Perrin is not small either nor is Stepper, his horse. And Loial is a 90yr old teenager not fully grown.
Good video. The one thing I’ll add that I hated is that they seemed to push all the male characters down, while making the female characters unrealistically overpowered.
Egwene and Nynaeve can both raise the dead now and destroy a literal army of trollocs with no training.
Meanwhile, Rand is just boring and doesn’t even have his big moment at the end. Perrin’s wolf story center was almost completely gutted. They don’t touch on Mat’s luck much.
Agelmar is changed from a noble lord into an ignorant chauvinist who just can’t listen to his listen. Lews Therin is changed from a tragic hero that saved a world on the brink of destruction, only to destroy it himself…into a prideful idiot who thought he could seal the dark one when there didn’t even seem to be a need to.
Oh, and the Moiraine literally tries to do the same exact thing, but it’s cool when she does it. 🤦🏻♂️
I feel like I had a weird entry into this fandom.. I was finishing up reading the first book while the weekly episodes were airing, so didn't notice the unexplained things as much in the show because I had the fresh experience with the book to fill in the gaps. At the same time, the first book is a slow build, so the weekly episodes kept me keen to continue on, because at least things were happening 😅 I loved some elements of the show, and thought that the first half of the season was stronger, and then they lost a bit of control over the story, but overall, I ended up hovering in the middle with both the book and the show 🤷♀didn't blow me away, but don't 100% hate either?
the issues wouldnt have changed a bit by "white" or non diverse cast but it is still a thing of our time.
the issue of the show was the scriptwriters not the actors i actually kinda liked the actors but im still against the extreme diverse emondsfields sorry thats just not how it was written and how it should feel but it wasnt the thing that broke the shows back, still a minor issue for me.
edit: episode 5 broke lans character to the extreme .. thats not lan.
As far as I understand it: 1000s of years prior to the main story, the world of WoT would've been a diverse sci-fi utopia. In the timeline after the world is broken, Emond's Field forms as this small village, relatively isolated from the rest of the world and becoming distrustful of outsiders. So over 1000s of years, the population becomes rather homogenous and they look alike.
Personally I think it makes sense if everyone in Emond's Field is brown. In this hypothetical version of the show, Madeleine Madden still plays Egwene, and we could even keep Josha Stradowski as Rand, since it's pointed out in the narrative that he looks unusual compared with everyone in the village. The TV adaptation has a harder time making the point that he looks different from everyone else, because _everyone_ looks different from everyone else, given the implausibly cosmopolitan population of a medieval village that has kept to itself for 1000s of years. In my hypothetical improvement, there'd be fewer white actors (at least in the Emond's Field cast), not more; the point is that it's more immersive and consistent with the world building drawn from the source material.
I don' think it matters what the population looks like - could be black or east asian or anything else - the point is that it's believable as an insular medieval village, and Rand stands out a bit, given his different heritage.
Yes, 3000 years prior to our story the world was a Sci-Fi setting. But, Emond's Field wouldn't have been founded until after the fall of Manatheren, which happened at the end of the Trolloc Wars, a mere 400 years ago. The people of Emond's Field are the remnants of what was once the greatest, most diverse kingdom in the known world. And, they are not completely isolated. It makes sense that some diversity remains, especially since we know new blood has been introduced periodically throughout those years (Rand's mom for one). The only real out of place casting for the EF5 is Mat, even though he is described as paler and blonder than the others, if not quite as pale as Barney is.
@@nikkisweezea2388 Thanks for the lore info! It still strikes me that 400 years is a lot of generations of people mostly or entirely marrying others from the same village. Another book reader was telling me that the Emond's Field folk are written as rather homogeneous and distrustful of outsiders; also that Rand's look (even his eye colour is mentioned in this context, if I recall) stands out compared to the other villagers; and that this in turn ties in to Tam al'Thor finding Rand elsewhere (the slopes of Dragonmount, according to the wiki I just checked - I'm not sure if it's the same place in the TV show).
@@MatthewShute If you're interested in the real-world genetics involved, Daniel Greene did an excellent video back in early 2021 about all the controversy surrounding the casting announcements that touches on what to takes to homogenize a population. But, basically, if even only 1 or 2 people is introduced into a population the size of Emond's Field every 2 or 3 generations, genetically there will still be enough variation to keep people distinct. In the real world, there is a very interesting case of a town in rural China that was on the Silk Road where a Jewish population settled down and stayed well before the birth of Christ. They were "found" by western explorers in the 1800s and they were still both culturally pre-Christ Jewish AND visually able to be differentiated from their neighbors because some of them had lighter skin, curly hair, and thicker facial hair than the average Chinese person of that time, despite 2000 years of interbreeding. It's fascinating. nearly 2000 years and you could still pick them out of a lineup of other Chinese people most of the time.
Hi Jess! I appreciate your take and comments on the show and the books! I hope that you enjoyed the first three enough to continue with the rest. I started reading in 1994 and just finished the final book a few years ago.
To your points, well said! The retelling created confusion for non-readers and rage in the fan-base. Not sure how either helps your end product. LOL!!! The horn (cough)! Easy enough to introduce as a legendary artifact by having someone (anyone) mention it. Or have Thom tell a story about it! Hey! What an idea.
For me the biggest problem I have is in the portrayal of the power dynamics between men and women. Robert Jordan created a world where women are very powerful, and a retelling wasn't needed to make that clear. Unfortunately, I think the retelling has major ramifications later as more is revealed.
I hope to see more of your videos. Who knows maybe you will inspire me to read new titles 🙂!
I liked the cast. The showrunner seemed to take a lot of shortcuts and do things for spectacle. I liked episode 4, until I thought more about the major issue with power creep and what that does to the overall story. There wasn't enough to to explain motivations. And like you the Stephan stuff was interesting and done well, but that time needed to be used for the main plot. The last episode was just bad. My husband thought the funeral scene was way overly dramatic and he missed little things like Rand having a bow because the show went way too fast.
I read the series while it was coming out in the 90s. I can appreciate that a tv show can't be the same as the books. But this was just a mess. It was boring, for one thing. Logain was such a threat that they just sat there for days shielding him? Why was there a whole episode on the Warder? The reveal of the Dragon Reborn was so lame. They basically took all the things I liked about Eye of the World (the worldbuilding, Perrin, Loial, the Green Man) and just went..eh. So yeah, I'm done with it.
I'm glad I can across your channel.
I was feeling guilty about not really liking the show. Now I know I'm not alone!!!
I will still watch it though
Why would you feel guilty about not liking this show
Imagine every great or heroic moment in the books. Those will be trashed altered or omitted in the series, often due to political correctness and wokeness.
So the amazing prologue when the original dragon goes insane after realizing he's killed off his family and then his creation of dragon mount. That scene is removed. The show runners want to make it the fault of men that the dark one's seal was broken and men aren't allowed to have big scenes or to be heroic whatsover in this series.
Rand does not save his friends from an army of trollocs, that task falls to untrained ill positioned female channelers. Mat is made into a scoundrel from the beggining and Perrin is whiny and broken after killing his wife, which doesn't happen in the books.
An entire episode is devoted, for no reason, to a warder who gets depressed and kills himself. (Warder actor is a gay lover of the show runner Rafe FYI). The heroic stand at the borderlands will not be done by battle hardened male war leaders, but by clueless untrained female channelers, since we can't have any male agency in this series. I don't have much hope for the TV series to be honest.
Alternatively, I didn't like how they were like ~who's the dragon reborn???~ and then spent little to no time really characterizing Rand? There was definitely more time spent on him than Perrin but I kind of felt like we never really got to know Rand and then suddenly he was the main character?
I am not sure if that is just based on me having read the books and Eye of the World is like 90% Rand 😆 My partner had not read the books before and he definitely thought it was one of the women or Matt.
I also am really not sure about the choice to say the Dragon Reborn could be a man or a woman. It kind of felt like they did it just to up the stakes of the mystery but I feel like it does nothing for Egwane or Nynaeve's character arcs. Plus I felt like it might become an issue later with the history/saidin/saidar but I don't know if it's really that important (I'm only through Book 4). It's not the worst choice and is kind of meh so it's not that big of a deal especially compared to everything else. Idk I'm curious what other people thought of that
Before the show, I had only read the first three books. I read book 4 while the episodes were being released. I have not yet started book 5 but I plan to soon, hopefully before February lol I had two original motivations for reading the series. The first is the fact that the TV show was coming out and the second being the fact that if I made it through those first eleven book, I would be rewarded with getting to read a trilogy by Brandon Sanderson lmao XD Now that I have just finished book 4, I can say that I am now actually motivated to read the series for its own sake because I'm enjoyed the direction Robert Jordan took the series in book 4 lol
I actually was not a big fan of the book series before watching the show, but my disappointment with the show made me retroactively appreciate the books a lot lmao. Like, I thought the books were just alright when I read them and thought that there were a ton of things that the show could and would improve upon (especially the end of The Eye of the World lol), but after watching the show I'm like, actually Robert Jordan is pretty damn good writer XD
after watching wheel of time i have become terrified for what theyre gonna do with the new lotr show
Rumour is WoT is their tester. Cos the budget for LoTR prime is like 10x bigger.
😬😬
I’ve only read the first 3 books, but when watching it with my bestie she said she probably wouldn’t have liked it as much/wouldn’t understand if I wasn’t there to explain. But highkey some of the stuff that they changed confused me too ☠️
They spent more money and time on the Trollocs than they did on Loial. 😒
Also, completely agree on the prologue! What the heck were they thinking, leaving that out??
I was waiting for this review. I read the first book of the series and didn't love it (It's a classic, but man everyone else has used it for their inspiration and I couldn't stop thinking about that). But I had been curious about the show since a TV show might respark my interest in reading the series. Then the first trailer came out and I cringed at the CGI I saw. Even the trailers looked cheap and I felt like I was watching 'Legend of the Seeker' level TV not the next 'Game of Thrones'. After what you've said, I think I'll skip out on in and rewatch Lord of the Rings.
Actually came over here because of the world hopper video on WoT tv show. Your takes were pretty spot on. The writing is horrible and I felt the men in the show were like ambient background noise rather than the supposed main characters.
I’m all for strong women but the way they wrote the show was literally “let’s make the men wimpy shadows floating in the background” 😂
On the topic of skin color in WOT I agree that having all of EF5 being all white would not make the show better. However, Emans field is supposed to be a backwater hemoganious community and this does not lend itself to have people look very different from each other. It would be like in black panther if a 1/3 of wakanda’s population was of European decent. It just doesn’t make sense for the world the story is trying to represent. I can think of some good ways this could have been explained, the diversity of the main cast in world because it needs some explaining for it to make sense. Like the wheel needed certain people to hook up and procreate and this movement could have been during the Aiel war. Would have kept the whole “old blood” narrative which i think personally is due to the idea that the white tower didn’t look fir channelers in such a back water so the channeling gene was able to grow strong with it being concentrated to so many people due to the closeness of the village. Ive got nothing against the actors but when a script calls for people to have certain characteristics because its integral to the world building to be a part of the actor then it has to be. Otherwise they need a good explanation. Imagine if the mountain in GoT was 4 foot tall, it detracts from the world. There are definitely a ton if racists who say that the show is made worse due to skin color inclusion but the problem is in this case that the way the show runners explained everything away “you can only tells people heritage from tone of voice” then never doing that at all does in fact make the show worse. From my reading of the story Robert Jordan was all for diversity. Like how the Eman’s field later in the books when it get refuges becomes a more advanced society such as using shingles for roofing instead of thatch due directly to the influx of new people. Its just the lack of care the writers have with making the world logically consistent or adding its own little interesting quirks in fear of being seen as racist or sexist detracts for the message the story was trying to tell. Its easier to change peoples minds not by saying that your ideas are better and their are worse but showing logically why your ideas are better and giving step by step.
The show having a diverse cast is not a problem per se. The books have very diverse characters and people. The problem is that the characters in the show are universally diverse - meaning they're equally diverse most everywhere. If the people of Emond's Field had all been black, it would have been a departure from the books, but it wouldn't have destroyed its logic: people in the Two Rivers have been mostly secluded for many hundreds of years, so they're not ethnically diverse simply because they couldn't have been! This is why Rand stood out: he didn't look lile other people in the Two Rivers. Does he stand out in the TV show? Most definitely not, because there are so many different-looking people. The show makes everything diverse, thus very much standardised.
Also, if you decide to change how the people of the Two Rivers look, and how people in other places look, then why try to make Rand look like the book's character? It doesn't make sense. Choose anyone to play Rand, who cares once you've decided the logic of the book doesn't apply? Why apply the logic of the books in some places and not in others?
But that's really only a tiny little insignificant detail here. The most glaringly obvious absurd and world-destroying take of the show is that they made the polarised nature of the One Power disappear.
In the books, the One Power is divided in two parts: Saidin, the male half of the Power (can only be used by men) and Saidar, the female part (can only be used by women). This is of the utmost importance: men who Channel turn mad because the Dark One tainted Saidin, the male part of the One Power. This is why only women can be Aes Sedai. This is why the prophecies say that the Dragon Reborn will save the world and destroy it. This is why we know that the Dragon Reborn can ONLY BE A MAN.
So if they absolutely wanted to keep this whole whodunnit nonsense, then they should have limited the suspect list to the men. But they didn't do that. They claim that even Moiraine and Siuan Sanche, who know the One Power, who read the prophecies and who were present when a Foretelling announced that the Dragon was reborn, don't know that the Dragon Reborn can only be a man.
This means that either they're incredibly stupid OR the show decided to make the male and female parts of the One Power merge - which utterly destroys the principles on which the books stand.
After all, if the same One Power is shared by both men and women, why do only men become mad using it? It can't be because the One Power is tainted, otherwise women would also turn mad. Since it's not an external cause, it has to be an internal cause.
In other words, men turn mad when they use the One Power... because they are men.
And in a show where men are visibly useless (Rand who remains weak and irrelevant even after it's revealed that he's the Dragon Reborn, Perrin, Mat, Loial, even Lan who is shown to be inferior to Nynaeve even concerning matters he perfected over decades of practice) and women are all-powerful (Nynaeve, the five untrained women who singlehandedly destroy the trolloc army in Tarwin's Gap (in lieu of Rand) and thus make the existence of the White Tower completely pointless, Egwene who kills (?) the Questioner with a knife even though she was tied and he was facing an irate Perrin, Nynaeve and Egwene literally curing death (!!!!), etc.), the destruction of that distinction cannot possibly be innocent. There is a (stupid) agenda behind that: women are intrinsically good, men are intrinsically bad.
They destroyed the source material in order to get a (stupid and disgustingly sexist) contemporary message across. This is atrocious.
Thanks for the review and breakdown. They lost me 5 min in. I could feel an "agenda" and decided I didn't want to give it any of my time equity.
It felt like community theater with an iphone recording. But it is ok, I suspect the next season will be the last.
One thing on diversity of Emmons field. It's pretty cutoff from the rest of the world. I don't care what color they chose but they should all look like they came from the same town. It takes me out of the world when anyone could be from anywhere.
Shinar was the same. If Lan is asian then shinar should all look asian. When they go to a bar and it looks like Disneyland it just pulls you out.
I can see your argument with this through other adaptations of books to movies or TV shows. Now, I love The Walking Dead and stumbled upon it one day when nothing else was on and it was around the time of the premiere of season 2 so they re-ran season 1. Because of watching it, I decided to get the compendiums and read it. There are times the book and the show are exact, sometimes it differs with characters, and sometimes they're different. I do love the difference because it keeps it interesting like Darryl Dixon was never in the compendiums and there's more, but I don't want to spoil. I also could go on about the difference in the Harry Potter stuff especially Prisoner of Azkaban, left a lot out.
Harry Potter movie writers had to deal with the lenghtening of the books and lore. I'm not justifying the choices, just wanted to point it out.
I never read TWD but loved the show until season 7 or was it 8? But yeah PoA leaves out so much
@@JessOwens I think it was end of season 7 and beginning of season 8 if you are talking about what Neegan did to certain people. I am still watching, but behind now because of the stupid refurbished DVR they gave me, like, I help pay for cable and you can't give me a new box?! I love that show too much plus Judith is definitely little ass kicker.
Yes, PoA got robbed of what it should have been or like the ending of the DaVinci Code, I guess it was too controversial for the movies, that bugged me because it was pretty faithful to the book until the ending.
i read the first two books as a child and remembered so little. when I saw the adaptation I had no idea what was going on most of the time. I only continued because I loved the costumes and the set designs for the locations. I watched GOT season 1 before reading the books. And the difference between WOT adaptation and GOT is that I understood what was going on , who and what roles people played in the GOT world without reading a sentence from the A Song of Ice & Fire books. In my humble opinion WOT needed more work and this was an adaptation we could have done without.
Really? You thought Lan's character was phenomenal? They turned him into a blubbering simp. What a cry baby. That was not Lan. Lan does NOT cry. He is the most respected and feared of all the warders and the greatest swordsman on the planet.
When I was watching the first episode I thought that the Padan Fain character was Thom, mostly because his smile is exactly how I envisioned Thom smile. And then when we get a glimpse of Thom, he ought to be wearing a nametag since he is nearly unrecognizable, but it's okay that he's forgettable because he's gone almost as soon as he enters.
I feel very similarly to you about the show as someone in the same boat in terms of a series reader. I was in the same situation as you after reading the first 3 books (I've since read 4 & 5), but I've gotta say book 4 is the best one so far and made me want to continue reading at least til the slog. One of the things I think the show did better though was make Mat a much better character than the annoying whiny thing he was in the first couple books.
True, I did enjoy Mat. So sad he’s (the actor) not going to be in season 2
Rafe Judkins himself said that it was their agenda so I don’t understand how that isn’t a valid criticism
Being a fan of the books, and now seeing a live adaptation of WoT makes me feel more strongly that an animated version would go over a lot better. Im the vain of 30min weekly episodes I think the potential for being more true to the book series is there. I can’t speak of budget or anything because I don’t truly know what is involved. But I feel the potential to *show* things is more doable in an animated format compared with live action.
There definitely is a trend / correction for diverse casting but it’s a good thing, we live in a white dominated society so it’s good to cast someone by their acting talents rather then appearance. My only problem is if they do it for historical things, same when they white wash it. Like obvious example is Cleopatra being portrayed by Elizabeth Taylor, Cleo was white but not that white. Or Gods of Egypt having pretty much everyone Gerard Butler white. Same with the recent Anne Boleyn show having her black. Jodie Turner-Smith is very beautiful and a good actress but it’s just weird changing a historical person or peoples race for the sake of it. Fantasy shows it really doesn’t matter because it was never real. I wonder though if Rage of Dragons ever got adapted would that be diverse?
That’s a fair critique of historical shows/movies. I think it’s extra bad when it’s a white actor playing a person of color and maybe that’s because for so long white has been the standard in Hollywood that now with someone historically white, they want to add a diverse cast? It’s hard to put my thoughts into a comment but it would be interesting to see what the cast for Rage of Dragons would look like
@@JessOwens I completely agree with you, white washing has happened far more and is worse because it’s more common. I think with the Anne Boleyn show they should have made everyone black or made it more even, just to make more of a point that it’s the acting talent rather then how they look. I think it was just Anne, her brother and some servants that weren’t white. It just felt extra weird this white king treating his black queen like complete crap. Weirdly they still made toddler Elizabeth a white ginger girl.
I felt like The Wheel of Time was missing levity. I never thought I'd say this but it desperately needed a comic relief character. EVERY SINGLE PERSON ON THIS SHOW WAS SUCH A DEBBIE DOWNER. When I went into the first episode I thought Mat would be the comic relief but then he spent half the season possessed by a knife. Everyone else was so dreary. The romances (save for Moiraine's) had no spice or chemistry. And I think the show suffered early on because it failed to create a camaraderie between the characters. I thought it was a mistake for us to meet the characters and then have them immediately split off. Perrin with Egwene, Mat with Rand, and Moiraine and Lan (who just go back home). I remember distinctively at the end of episode 6 where Moiraine said something like "I withheld secrets from you before because I didn't know you. Now I know you." And I was like girl when? When did you get to know them? You still feel as unfamiliar with them in ep 6 as you did in ep 1.
Also at the end of ep 6 a character chooses to stay behind rather than continue the journey and I didn't care. IT WAS EPISODE 6, there are only 8 episodes in the season, and I DIDN'T CARE. That's a problem. That far into a show, viewers should be so emotionally invested that they live or die off of a character choosing to stay behind. I stopped watching after that.
Finally, the costume design was off. I didn't like the white lady in ep 3 wearing dreads to suggest that she was a vagabond who lived on the fringes of society. It felt very "how do we make someone look unkempt and transient? = dreads." And I swear Rand was wearing a sweater in episode 1 that came from Brook's Brothers.
Hi Jess, I liked your review. I've read all the Wheel of Time books except the prologue and have been a pretty big fan of the series for years. Like you I don't think an adaptation had to be 100% faithful to the series since WoT is known to have a good bit of fluff. That said, the changes they made really made zero sense, broke many of the rules of the world, and cheapened the show. I was fully expecting the prologue to be the opener of the show since it sets up the conflict and gives you context about the world right out of the gate but that didn't happen, which was really bizarre because WoT's prologue is basically made for TV it works in a similar way to the start of the first LoTR movie and what replaced it just did not do it justice. I also wished they had done a lot more build up to Rand's dragon reveal and just generally develop the characters, which they did not do. Mat and Perrin's traits in the books are the raven prince ('the gambler') and a wolfbrother, both of which are heavily explained in the books but neither of which are explained in the show, the latter is a victim of removing Elyas who explains Perrin's wolf connection to him in the Eye of the World. The characters end up being less interesting because what makes them interesting just isn't really included.
Then there's Egwene and Nynaeve who are both incredibly powerful Aes Sedai but, in the books, they have to go through a really long struggle to become as powerful as they are, since people don't just randomly gain extreme power, the one power is a complex, rigorous magic system which has to be learned to be wielded intelligently (thats the whole point of the White Tower) for good or ill. Well in the show they both have these very OP moments where they resurrect dead people or fight off an extremely dangerous and deadly creature (Machin Shin with regards to Nynaeve). That strips away depth from the world and the characters when this is occurs and is an example of that bad writing you were referring to. Other things that sucked for me was how many locations are poorly done or excluded entirely, such as Caemlyn, the entire storyline of episode 5 contributing very little to the show, the set and costuming issues you touched on, and all of episode 8 being a narrative disaster. The writing was definitely very bad throughout and it is unfortunate because, also as you mentioned, it's quite possible the actors could have done a lot with a good script.
I have also noticed a significant number of bigoted takes regarding this show which is sad because sometimes someone will make a good point about bad screenwriting in WoT and then will go on to talk about a nonexistent 'misandrist agenda'. Legitimate criticism ends up being drowned out so thank you for a video that steers clear of such takes.
The show isn't made worse by the melanin content of the actors, but the obvious push to insert diversity into the show in ways that contradict the book doesn't add anything either. What's more it speaks to the priorities of the showrunners, who clearly care more about their version of "diversity" than the actual story they are meant to be telling.
And you see, this is why I stopped reading the books first. If I already read it, then fine, but if a show comes out based on a book I will not be reading the book until I'm done watching the show.
Because I watched this show and I loved it. I was like, 'yay, another fantasy series for me to get into. Its diverse, its dark and intriguing, good stakes, cool female leads, I like it.' By itself, without the context of the books, it's a good show and I was looking forward to season 2. I'm sure it was lacking PLENTY from a book reader's perspective. Not even denying that. But sometimes you just need to separate yourself from it. Accept that it's not the same story, and if you can't, stick to the books and forget the series. What else can I say.
Edit: Amazon got me salty for hitting my Twitter with a copyright strike simply because I shared barely a minute video clip from the series so I never got to S2, like there are trailers longer than a minute and you'll strike me for that?? I have not talked about it since. Promotion is not free.
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While I can't speak for all of the dudes who had issues with the "diverse" casting, My personal issue was this: the books already have diverse characters. You have Seanchan who are described as black asian, some of the cities have an obvious middle eastern feel, etc. By making Emonds field diverse rather than homogenous like it was supposed to be Rand doesn't stick out quite so much. The village was supposed to be isolated for over 300 years I think. To me I think it would have been best if the village had been white or southern European looking because it would have made their venture into the world that more impactful. Think of the culture shock a bunch of white kids from a remote village would experience now encountering peoples of other cultures.
PS
I couldn't help but notice N.K. Jemison on your bookshelf. I haven't read the broken earth series but from the others I've read like the City We Became I know the woman is a baddass in the literary field.
Is it me or did the makeup for Loial look like the makeup for the lion from the 70's production of the Wiz?🤨
I thought it was ok, just ok. Not bad but not great either, some of the cgi looked terrible considering the budget. The clothes looked too clean most of the time. Haven’t read the books so don’t know much about the source material. Episode 4 was my favourite. I’m still intrigued for season 2. With the race swapping I just figured the characters looked like that in the books, art I’ve seen for Egwene and Nynaeve generally show them having darker skin. I get why people would want characters to look like they do in the books but if someone says it ruins the show that’s ridiculous. The acting’s more important. Like with the Witcher, I’ve read the books. Yennefer and Fringilla are both white in them but the diverse actors still portrayed them well because they were good actors, that’s more important. With resurrection scenes Lan wasn’t dead yet, he was bleeding out and going to die but didn’t actually die. Nynaeve I figured she was wounded and passed out but not fully burned out since her eyes weren’t blackened and she wasn’t as crispy as the other women.
The resurrection trope was never something on the books. The Power was used once for trying to resurrect someone, but it was clear that it was not going to work or even if it does, the person would be a soulless zombie. Death is the only thing that cannot be healed.
you voiced SOO many of my issues with the show - overall it just feels like they had little faith in the material
I’m here to hear ur opinion on the show since I will never watch or read the series so 🥂🥂🥂
Saaaaaaaaaame.
🍿🍿🍿
Same 😂😂😂😂
😂😂😂
Oh man, you are going to be so much more disgusted with the resurrection trope being used here when you get to a certain extremely horrifying scene with Rand near the beginning of book 4.
I'm not going to continue with the show, all those changes didn't make sense and the only thing I liked, which was a little more development to the story of Lan and Nynaeve, was ruined it, in book 2 it is mentioned how Nynaeve would not have done what she did (get into his room). But whatever, that's just a silly thing that I think the show was doing good and then not. There was a lot of other problems like poor Loial and Perrin's wife, but the thing I just can't handle is that they left out the whole main theme: the one power divided into saidar and saidin, the corruption of the saidin and how working together will bring balance again. They never explain any of this, I hope they do it sometime in the future.
I hope you have continued reading the series (especially if you don't have to pay for them full price). The fourth book hints toward the direction of the rest of the story. The only way I feel an adaptation would work for this series is animated. 🖖😎👍
The original story was written by a classic feminist. Rafe is a fourth wave feminist. He spent a lot of time tearing down the boys. I don't really think he's a fan of the show or he wouldn't have made the girls taveren thus removing their agency. Wot has so many powerful women and I think the show runner went into it thinking I have to fix this sexist garbage. Hey Perrin wasn't a villian he was just used as menial labor and for pouting.
It's not just 8 episodes but 8 seasons for 15 books. The mistake a lot of people are making is that season 1 is not an adaptation of book 1. The season is an adaptation of all 15 books.
"Before you type your dissertation in the comments." cracked me right up.
You are not wrong abt ur thoughts the show could have been much better even with the limited budget they had but nevertheless I'm on book 6 right now and I quite enjoyed the show and I know it's subjective but I believe as a non-reader one will at the very least not disklike the show. Also it's only the 1st season we shouldn't judge it so early.
I'm sure their budgets will increase with eash season and It will only get better from here. I have hope:)
At this point I feel like a sad internet troll when it comes to this subject lol. I can’t even bring myself to really offer my opinions any more because I’m so deflated by what they did. Stick to the books folks. There are good adaptations and there are bad adaptations. This show is just a burning pile of garbage and I truly hope the actors find better gigs. I really liked the Emonds Field 5 actors. But they did Rand, Matt and Perrin dirty. They also decimated the agency for Egwene and Nynaeve. What a shame. I mean Egwene can barley heal in the books but they give her the ability to resurrect? The books are clear that the One Power cannot heal death… but whatever. I liked the video!
One of the benefits of being a fan of grimdark fantasy is I don’t have to worry about my favorite series getting ruined because most of them are too graphic and explicit for television lol.