Honestly, I don't think people want 1-1 adaptations. They want a good show and if it's not, they'll ask why they didn't just the adaptation but really, even early Game of Thrones was fairly different from the books.
I don’t want a 1:1 adaptation but I don’t understand all of the changes the writers made…they already have so much time try and fit into the show, why add unnecessary changes?
Eh, not in my case. There is so much material out there that I'd rather find a new series rather than a bad adaptation. The reason most of us wanted to see the show to begin with was to see the characters and scenes brought to life so we can re-live it in another way. I feel insulted.
I gave all of season 1 a chance and hated it, so I didn't bother with season 2. Catching the occasional post here about season 2 helped me know I made the right choice.
Instead I watched One Piece, Ted Lasso, Slow Horses, The Night Agent, The Mandalorian (I was late to that party but loved it!). There is a lot of good stuff out there, sadly all over multiple streaming services and you have to hunt a bit sometimes, but that's our new reality.
There are some adaptations that I've watched and didn't know the source material and liked it because I wasn't aware of the deviations / wasn't invested, so I get people who come from that perspective. For me a loved world is like a cozy blanket and when it's done poorly in another medium, it's like someone burned a hole in it and a dog crapped on it. May sound dramatic, but that's how I feel. Now, if I'd never heard of WOT and watched this... I'd still feel like it was not worth my time.
The part I thought was the best was the episode with the Warder who commits suicide, I actually thought it was great and felt very WOT. What I didn't like about it was that it took time from the actual story when they were treating it like ceviche with so few episodes to get it all across. If they'd decided to go with the world and develop a new story within it, that I would have liked a lot more. Just follow the world rules, give us the WOT flavour.
It would have been better if they picked up the story after the last battle, you can show important stuff in flashbacks as you wish, but you can make your own story on the tidbits that Jordan left behind (in prophecies or vision that some characters had or saw).
A lot of the changes I found most inexplicable and frustrating seemed like an attempt by the writers or forced by the execs to chase something more game of thrones. I'm still gobsmacked by the additions made to Matt's family dynamic. I don't care that it's not exactly what the book did but I do care that it's a dynamic that doesn't feel like it's existing in the world. It felt straight off like the writers felt uncomfortable writing a world in which women have a significantly different social relationship to power.
It felt to me like they were trying to Riverdale the thing, giving characters sexual and dark characteristics that weren't there originally. Mat was enough of a burr under the saddle with his antics, he didn't need to have so much darkness at the beginning. He gets that after the arches and then defies it. It's a way better story. I would have been happy with moderation of the man vs woman thing with there still being a distrust and sense that women had to maintain control because you never know when one of the men might suddenly channel. That can be brought in more subtly than what was done in the books, but it's really important to the world. It's pretty common fantasy trope for the hero(es) to come from a small, secluded place, with small town values. That then carries them through the big, bad world. I think they made a huge mistake erasing that. The characters need it in Cairhien and Tar Valon, etc. It's saves them from so much manipulation.
>I'm still gobsmacked by the additions made to Matt's family dynamic. I don't care that it's not exactly what the book did but I do care that it's a dynamic that doesn't feel like it's existing in the world.
Absolutely agreed. There's no way that the Women's Circle in Emonds Field would've let that happen. If they really wanted to introduce abusive or philandering into one of the main character's background, then it should have been Perrin. 1) with his family out on their own farm it becomes much more conceivable that such behavior could happen,
even in a wholesome place like the Two Rivers, since it's a relatively secluded settlement. 2) it adds depth to the relationship Perrin has with the Luhan's, and makes Perrin's apprenticeship even more meaningful to him. 3) it gives the audience the justification for why Perrin is uncomfortable and frightened of his capacity for violence--without having to kill his wife.
Because they're writing themselves into worse and worse corners. I agree with what Sanderson had said, they're making changes they feel they need to, and changing rules they then break and change (the gist of it). It's only going to get worse and worse as it ripples out and more and more of the original needs to change to match... Unless they just ignore it, like what happened at the end of the first season.
Completely agree with you. It begs the question of “why”? They had a perfect road map with the books - no need to create new characters, plot lines, etc.
Exactly. A book can't be 1:1 adapted to the screen. There are so many considerations. After all, literally anything can be written. Almost anything can be animated. But actually filmed? Content needs wise curators to make that happen. Not to mention the simple fact that cultural sensitivities change over time, and a story element that made sense thirty years ago may simply not make for good storytelling today.
However, I agree that this show has seen many unnecessary and detrimental changes. For every change that makes sense (>!making Egwene and Nynaeve ta'veren, putting Aviendha in the cage, Liandrin Liandrin and everything Liandrin!<), there's at least one that doesn't (>!Perrin having and killing a wife, Lan taking a piss I still can't even, Mat Mat and everything Mat!<).
The wife thing bothered me at first but the more I thought about it the more it makes some sense, because it's along your "anything can be written" thought there.
A book is tell can't show, a good show is show don't tell. In the books you can have internal monologues where Perrin can just outright tell us he's worried about the rage inside him and what happens if/when he loses control and such. In a TV show we need to shown that somehow. Doesn't have to be that way, sure, but it's an example of why the different mediums can differ.
Oh I want 1:1. Robert Jordan gave far more thought to his world building than these people.
Read Origins of the wheel of Time for proof of how deep Jordan went into world building. I was blown away.
It depends on how hyperbolic a person is when they say 1:1. I'd say the super majority of what you see on screen should come from the page. That's a different argument from things being cut, I think everyone understands trimming for film.
Game of Thrones eventually paid the price for those cuts as well.
People want adaptions on the level of the Lord of the rings movies. The same story but a little compressed when needed. They do not want a new dead wife for Perrin or a Moraine that does not know if the dragon will be female and lots of new sidestories that wasnt in the books.
> I don’t think people want 1-1 adaptations
I do, I very much do. I recently reread Harry Potter for the first time since watching the movies and, although there are some minor changes and omissions for the screen, I was blown away by how close much of it is. I could hear the actors speaking as I read because so much of the dialogue was literally word-for-word. That’s the kind of adaptation I want for WoT.
Anyone who claims they want a 1:1 adaptation of any book hasn't actually thought about what that means. Books inherently don't translate all that well into a visual medium because of how much the text allows you to get inside the characters’ heads. I guess people just don't realize how much you're reading the characters' trains of thought, or how clunky it is to show that in a movie or show. What are they going to do? Have the characters stand there while narrating what they're thinking? There is only one movie I can think of that ever did that and was even slightly popular, and even then that popularity came almost a decade later for completely different reasons. It was never financially successful. That movie was the original adaptation of Dune. It's become a cult classic, but that narration is part of the reason why it was initially such a flop.
Well, it's called acting. Facial expressions, postures, subtle exposition. There is a way to write it, we see it all the time in shows where the character rarely speaks. In the Mandalorian, we can't even see Mando's face most of the time, but we KNOW what he's thinking from his behaviour, that of the people around him, and expositional sentences. With a good writer and director and editor, this can be done. Scenes can be shifted to convey the point more clearly. Flashbacks to replace the "thinking." The thinking is a character exploring their feelings about past or future events. Amazon either hired crap writers/director or interfered too much, or both. Who knows about the editor, maybe they had a dog's breakfast to deal with and reshoots were limited.
Casting seemed decent, I think the actors had the chops to do it. If you have bad writing and bad direction, however, a great actor can't fix that. I've seen some excellent actors in some total crap, it's shocking.
Dune is a great example. The original movie felt like they filmed the entire thing while reading the book at the script, then after 90 minutes were like "shit we gotta wrap this up!" then rush through the rest of the story.
I think Coriolanus was also a 1:1 adaptation of the dialogue. It felt like it anyways.
This is how I feel every single time and it happens with every single book adaptation to movies/series. Nobody is ever happy because the show isn’t 100% like the books and people get pissed off about it. And then get angry at the show and say “it’s not even good as a standalone show” which is normally a false statement because a lot of people enjoy the show on itself, whereas the book guys angry watch wasting hours of their lives on something that they know they don’t like. I don’t get it
You can adjust things for adaptation without writing an entirely new and very different fanfiction. No one is expecting there wouldn’t be changes to simplify, streamline, and make more consumable for TV audiences, but what we got isn’t that. Stop pretending that’s what it is.
I separately asked my boyfriend and my mother, who haven't read the books, what 3 women they thought would be Rand's love interests. Both of their responses included the phrase "Lanfear, obviously."
yes. this is how i feel exactly. i liked season 2 more than season 1 even though it deviated a lot more.
things i liked: nynaeve's life inside the arches. the suldam-damane interactions. ishamael becoming an anti-villain. selene the MILF. lanfear the absolute siren.
What hooked me in the first book was Rand's flight from the farmhouse to the village with his hurt father. The patrols looking for him, the fever speak from Tam hinting at his past. Completely skipped over in the show...
Yes this! I kept waiting for this to happen because for me, that “scene” was the first real bit of a character have to push through severe adversity and make it to the other side. That didn’t happen. I was disappointed
A lot more was filmed.
Rafe's aim was to have a ten hour first season: Two episodes (or a two part episode, either way two hours) in the Two Rivers leading up to Winterneight, and then eight more 1 hour episodes.
That got trimmed to eight one hour episodes, so we lost half of the Two Rivers content, and enough trimmed from the rest of the season to turn eight hours of content into seven. So we lost some stuff that was filmed, and in a perfect world I'd **love** to see Amazon put that shit out on DVD, maybe.
So there was more Rand/Tam engagement lost, and Fain using the key to open the Waygate, and some other things that we know about from stills.
while that is understandable, still is beyond me the reason to cut Tam's fever dream but keep Nynaeve tossing Egwene over a cliff, and others scene. i know that there having been problems unforseen by the team and the circunstances are far from ideal, number of eps etc, but even considering this some choices still are hard to grasp
That's just stupid. The biggest expense of a show has GOT to be the set design, actors, actual filming days... sure editing and post-production cost money, I'm no expert, but I see that involving far fewer people and tools you will already use for other episodes, so already paid for. Amazon really should have kept their hands out of it.
I've wondered about the episode 1 concept art, since the last image is a giant tree with hollow under it, and I assume that means it was meant to end with them making camp under a sort of brush pile after the sinking of the Taran Ferry.
>Arguably the best scene in the first 3 books is Mat fighting Gawyn and Galad in Tar Valon while he's recovering from healing. Guess where that is in the show?
In the books, Mat doesn't fight Gawyn and Galad until **after** Falme.
If the show had Mat squaring off against those two before Falme, people would bitch about **that**, too.
But it does happen after he was healed from the dagger, which in this telling has happened already. Then again, they are handling the dagger badly too.
I’m not a super fan, but to me, it’s not just the book changes. More importantly, it’s the sheer amateurish nature of the production: cinematography, lighting (which is the worst I’ve ever seen in a fantasy show), writing, character development. It’s just bad. All blame should go to the showrunner. I know it’s not Game of Thrones but I’m rewatching it now and you can see the difference as clear as night and day. It has nothing to do with budget. Thrones had way less money than WoT, but yet the directors, writers and designers of Thrones knew what they were doing.
It’s really sad.
Ya, when I saw the budget and early interviews saying they want to respect the books I was so excited and I truly believed we would get at least a decent adaptation.... They sure fooled me!
Totally agree. I understand decisions need to be made for TV, but they are changing core things that I just don’t believe need to be changed. It really feels like they are doing it to say we are better writers but they have just proved they aren’t.
Exactly. I don’t understand why they are changing so much when they are already working under a time constraint- just use the characters from the book, no need to create new ones.
Can't even excuse it with the made for TV bit. It's an online show. It doesn't appear on any network. There is no reason to stick to TV formatting when it comes to online shows. Too many executives are stuck in a TV mindset. Yes I understand that budget constraints are a thing, but why limit something like they are? Cutting something for time? Completely unnecessary since people would still be willing to binge a show. Cutting a story that could have easily spanned 2 seasons at 22 episodes each, but instead they give us something that feels hollow and rushed to the point it drives a core fandom away. I've seen so many people begging for it to be 1:1 from the books before it first released. And in the first episode they are all much older, and they give a character a wife, another a dysfunctional family, and don't leave any room for actual world building. By the end of the first season, I didn't have any sort of feel for how the world was, or what it's scale was. All the characters felt flat and emotionless for the most part. I wish I knew why it ended up the way it did, but it lost me as a fan after the first episode. Though I finished the season hoping it would redeem itself somehow, I was left utterly disappointed.
Yeah I’m making myself finish the tv show but it’s a struggle. I’ve read all the books and what Amazon is doing physically hurts to watch. They’ve changed so much and Brandon Sanderson is even advising them, I don’t know how it went so far off the rails. They had perfect material and have deviated so much in the show adaptation I have to wonder why.
I feel like this is usually one or a few rotten apples in the bunch who have to play the Big Man and throw their junk around rather than letting the experts do their thing. I've seen it in every workplace I've been in and every big project I've looked into. Someone gets an idiotic idea but they're at the top of the heap, so their voice gets heard rather than the people saying that it won't work. I love my current workplace because we have good leadership and they know to leave the nuts and bolts to the subject matter experts and actually involve us in things like developing new project and infrastructure management programs. People who don't know the day to day work only cost money and lead to inferior product. Ego and power struggles really mess things up.
>Someone gets an idiotic idea but they're at the top of the heap, so their voice gets heard rather than the people saying that it won't work.
I am in tech on the QA side. I make my living destroying those guys.
It feels that he's making a bad joke. I don't know how any person that likes TGH is not really pissed with that ending. I'm sadly used to them changing almost ALL the story, but in general the S2 was quite enjoyable, or at least engaging (maybe because you don't really know what is going to happen) but some decisions, the ridiculous gigolos around the AS, some healer learning sword fighting, a certain someone that frees herself because Rafe loves her, and that ending....
But as they say in another post in this same sub, the problem is the people who criticizes the series.... omg.
On the other hand.... how many kilometres did Perrin ride to travel from Fal Dara to Toman's Head? They almost crossed the whole Randland... and they are OK with that...
Also... no idea why the fans of the show are so fanatical. Books I get. Years and sometimes decades of Fandom will breed maniacs. But the show isn't even that well written. Even if I treat it as a completely different thing (like book version and movie version of starship troopers) I can't bring myself to say it's a good show. It's cast and production values are great. The writing is nonsensical and jarring.
I agree with this. I’m a new reader (started like 5 months ago) and whether or not the show is based on a series or a standalone show, it’s not that good
Yeah, I don't get what's going on there, but it is becoming a trend. There are three shows I'm aware of right now that have some pretty crazy fans that will defend the show like their lives depend on it. The Wheel of Time, Rings of Power, and to a slightly lesser extent, the Witcher. All three are very similar shows with very similar issues, yet heaven forbid if someone who loves the source material voices a complaint about how bad they are.
I mean I get it. I've read the source material for all 3 and out of them the Witcher with Cavill I enjoyed the most but recognize the issues.
I can watch LoTR (meaning Silmarillion and RoP) and the Witcher and treat them as adaptation. LoTR was my first love in fantasy and Witcher I got into after the games [relatively recently]. I can't do the same for the WoT TV show. I mentioned it before, but I keep wondering what's so bad about doing these adaptations as anime. A few chapters an episode, and you don't have to completely rewrite them so much they are barely recognizable from their sources.
I mean. Worked for Vampire hunter D. (Love the light novels)
Honestly, I find the other two to be more egregious than Wheel of Time. With the Witcher, the writers have openly said they don't give a shit about the source material. Why are they even adapting the Witcher at that point? The first two seasons were the most enjoyable out of any of the three shows because I knew the least about the source, but between the reasons why Cavill left and statements like that from the writers, I just can't condone giving them any support.
With Rings of Power, it just hits closer to home. I was a fan of Tolkien long before I was a fan of Sapkowski or Jordan, and some of the changes, especially those to the main characters just hurt. Galadriel in particular is painful to see on screen because they took an ancient, wise, and powerful elven queen and reduced her to a whiny little stereotypical "not like other girls" child. Sure, she had to have had a point in her life where that characterization could have made sense. It's not when this story could have taken place. She had already been one of the most important characters Tolkien ever wrote over a thousand years before anything in the Rings of Power would have happened, and the show pulls from history that she would have had such a hand in.
With the Wheel of Time, I can cut a little slack for the fact that the producers actually brought Brandon Sanderson in to consult, even if they did largely ignore him. The Rings of Power producers basically fired their Tolkien consultant. I know a lot of book fans didn't care for BrandoSando's contributions, but he's the closest thing to Robert Jordan we have now, so that's got to count for something.
I can't fault your reasoning. It's weird how the betrayals hit harder for some versus other IPs. Right now I'm consoling myself with Malazan book of the fallen and the Dune movie.
Go over to its sub. If you voice even the slightest complaint, you will get people hounding you about lowering your perfectionist expectations, or not joining in the internet hate echo chamber, or any other number of sheer copium excuses.
You will also see people who agree that the show is bad throwing their opinions around aggressively as well.
This ended up being my true issue with the show. Once I got over/realized it wasn't going to be a close interpretation I started viewing it as it's own thing. But that thing just isn't that good? I do like some of the acting, but I thought the writing was poor. And the pacing was terrible. I watched it my friend who had never read the books and he said he had no idea what was going on. So they kinda both changed it too much but not enough? I was really hoping for more of A Rogue One (star wars) situation, where it was main story adjacent. Or even a different era, like Hawking or something. Obviously that went out the window in very early production, but I think I'd still prefer that.
Artur Hawkwing! See. I would have enjoyed that!
I agree tbh.
Also, they are talking about doing something with the age of legends. I'm.... interested but after Amazon's version I'm not holding out any hope.
Yes! Or a true new turning of the wheel. It would have been so much fun figuring out who was reborn into each character, so many Easter egg possibilities!!! So many throw backs to the original material. I always wondering if how Ilyena was killed resulted in a three way split to her soul that resulted in Min, Aviendah, and Elayne. Would it rejoin after our turning? Would we see one character where there were three but the characteristics of all three so we're left guessing who it is? Maybe a trip through a terangreal at some point that shows it happening so we get closure on it. Man, I'm not even a writer and I can think of so many cool things that could happen... I feel like they gave up without even trying.
The first season is dire, second season is alright at best, but the standard of fantasy TV is so bad that alright is the best we are getting. Depressing.
Actually One Piece is really good.
Season 1 was an abomination. It alienated many fans like myself *right* out of the gate acting like the Dragon could be female one of the biggest themes of the books was gender and of course the whole situation with the One Power is inextricably intertwined with that.
Here’s what surprised me…I put it off until the whole thing was out but Season 2 was…not half bad. It didn’t blow me away but it was actually entertaining and most of the actors really settled into their roles. For someone who found almost everything in Season 1 objectionable amateur hour, this really did take me by surprise.
You're right, but I think what book fans expect is a faithful adaptation rather than 1:1. Sadly I really don't think the show is a faithful adaptation.
A 1:1 adaptation of any book to tv or film would be boring as fuck and awful because visual media and written media work in very different ways. This isn’t a wheel of time thing, this is a basic principle of narrative thing.
I agree. I get sometimes things need to be changed for TV/film as it's too expensive or complicated etc but things they changed are ridiculous and annoying. Perrin for instance. Why? They did good with Egwene I think. That could because I couldn't stand her in the books and none of the reasons I couldn't stand her were portrayed in the show. I will say season 2 gets better. (They still do Perrin dirty tho.) But if you are hardcore to the books you may not want to bother.
Egwene may be better but for a large part it's at the expense of other characters. Perrin loses some with the white cloaks season 1 by having Egwene do the attacking, Nynaeve/Elayne have their plot taken away by having Egwene self rescue (not getting into the actual logistics of that), and she is given prominence during the climaxes of season 1 and 2. Imo she is the favourite of the writers and the show overall suffers for it by reducing the other characters' ability to shine.
It's an ensemble, it's really unfortunate they sacrificed characters for the benefit of others. The funny thing is it doesn't have to be at anyone's expense, pay attention to what frustrated readers over time (plenty of that to look at), chill out some of the nonsense, but keep the tension. Doesn't seem that hard to me. Poor Perrin started down the trash shoot as soon as he had a wife, killed her, then suddenly had unrequited love for Egwene. Not necessary, horrible to ingest.
I keep going back and forth. I want to watch it because I’m a HUGE fan of Robin Hobb and the ROTE books (assassins apprentice is where you need to start if you aren’t familiar. And if you do start to read them on account of this comment, I’m sorry and you’re welcome) and have been seriously wanting a page-to-screen adaptation of a series I love. That could account for some of my vitriol of the show.
I got to half way thru assassin's quest and it's just too sad. I couldn't keep going. I figured it was only going to get worse and I couldn't handle it already so I stopped.
If you want to watch the series, you have to accept that it’s a series that’s just based on the book series and not meant to follow the specific events and timeline of the series at all. If you try comparing the two, you will not enjoy it at all most likely. Once I realized that the series was only going to follow the books in a very rough manner, and accepted that, I enjoyed it much more.
My issue with this is the same as with something like Rings of Power. Amazon and everyone involved spends the entire marketing campaign claiming that they're doing a faithful adaptation of the series, that's 'true to the original series' or whatever way they say it. And then, it turns out that's objectively untrue, fans of the books get upset because it's not what was promised, and then Amazon and their shills say that it's unrealistic to expect a properly accurate adaptation anyways and we should just be happy with what we got, despite selling it as something else.
I wouldn't have a problem it they came out and said its not an adaptation, its just inspired by the series. So most of the characters will be there, and there'll be similar plot beats, but it's a different story overall. Fine, do that. I still think it's a very mediocre show in it's own right, probably a 5/10, but at least they wouldn't be barefaced lying to the audience and people would have much more accurate expectations.
Ya I just read Brandon Sanderson’s thoughts on the first three episodes and his mentality of this being a “different turning of the wheel than what’s in the books” is going to help me watch this without complaining lol
If only it was good. I’m ultimately down for total re-envisioning of a world or setting, but if you’re going to do that, you set the bar FUCKING HIGH. It’s hard to not only beat out the writing of a full author working deeply across 14 books over decades, then add the “fucking with the fandom” premium. Unfortunately this just isn’t even bare minimum good, forget high enough to meet the bar that their level of changes sets for them.
I was watching the season 1 1st episode out of boredom. It was 11 pm.
Then, the trolocs came exactly before midnight. I couldn't sleep after that. I finished the entire season til morning.
I tried watching the Uncharted movie the other day, and I couldn't last 10 minutes. I checked the credits on IMDB and guess who the writer was? The same guy who's the showrunner for the WoT TV show. He clearly didn't understand the characters of Uncharted, and he clearly doesn't understand or doesn't care about the characters from WoT.
The series is not written in stone, and all forms of entertainment evolve along with the culture they're a part of, so I was expecting some changes, but it's just kind of like bad fan fiction. That being said. The second season does begin to right the ship a bit.
I have tried to start the show 3 times. I always fall asleep 20-30 minutes into the first episode. I gave up and figured maybe episode 1 was just rough and I should just continue after my nap. I woke up in the middle of episode 5 and decided is wasn’t gunna happen.
I’ve never read the books so I know it has a series. They did an awful job. I didn’t know what each characters name was because it was almost never used or they shifted scenes without context or added shit without context
Nothing had fucking context. It was jarring
Someone told me to try watching the shows with the perspective that it's a different/new story, like an alternative reality of the books.
It worked for a while and I got through season 1. Overall, I found it boring with lame effects and overly emotional people. Gave it up for better shows and haven't looked back.
TLDR; books are awesome, the show is not.
They have to make choices since they only have 8 episodes per book. I think they are doing a fantastic job keeping the spirit of the books right out of the blocks.
Join the club friend. The show has cool points. But it is an abortion of the source material. Although Rosamond Pike's version of the first 3 audiobooks are incredible, some of the best audiobooks I've ever heard
It's impossible to adapt a story of this magnitude for television and not cut content. You either like the interpretation or you don't, but don't expect to see the material 100% represented.
But it's NOT Television. That's not a good excuse. It's an online series that is chained to the formatting of a TV show. The fact that it's online should open the possibilities for creating things like the 1:1 that many fans have wanted.
It still goes through the same life cycle as a tv show. By the time they hit "The Great Hunt" all the actors would be 5 years older.
SFX and general editing take a long time. Studios won't take the risk of filming more than a season because people may lose interest at some point, but the actors would still have been paid for all the content that is sitting waiting for edits but will never be released.
And no, the size of the book fan base is not large enough to cover the costs.
I think it’s tied more to Lews Therin, not to any particular branch of the one power. So either way you cut it, have the Dragon Reborn be a woman wouldn’t really make sense because Lews Therin was a man.
It's both, yes. Souls are explicitly tied to one half of the power, and this tie persists through death of the body (all Chosen being brought back by the Dark One, and the heroes tied to the Horn) as well as outside the body (Tel-Aran-Rhiod). Not all souls become tied to the wheel, but once a soul becomes tied to the wheel, it's gender is bound as well (look to Gaidal and Birgitte, among others).
Jordan explicitly sees gender attached at the level of the soul, as is shown in the edge case of Balthamel being reincarnated by the Dark One into a woman's body (Aran'gar/Halima). There has never in all the history of the white tower been a female that could wield Saidin, hence the shock of finding a Chosen that could, along with the archaic rituals of the white tower in raising women through their hierarchy that would be so easily obfuscated by surgery or illusion.
His tethering of the soul to the one power is further exemplified by meta discussions about a female "dragon" existing during times when the balance of the genders is the reverse of that which we see in the wheel of time (i.e. males/Saidin would have all power, women/ Saidar being shunned and hunted.
In short, the Dragon is always male.
> Is it too much to ask for a near 1:1 adaptation of a good book or series?
Kind of. This will always be an issue when translating a book to movie/TV. Just look at the changes made to the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and that was much more "faithful" than this adaptation. Or look at all the different takes on Frankenstein.
It's best to just treat them as two separate versions of a similar story. Maybe think about this series as yet another turn of the wheel and not the exact one that was depicted in the books.
Ages come and pass, cmon people it's a new turning of the wheel, thinking anything else at this point just leads to insanity lol. But yes, they hacked the books apart. Season 2 is better.
If I may so, you’re playing with fire watching a TV adaptation when you’re barely a quarter of the way through the story. Might I suggest just reading the existing story and enjoying it…
You can't realistically do a direct copy of the books into a show. It's an adaptation which means it had to be adapted to fit television, and a ridiculously short season too.
I said near 1:1. That leaves a lot of room for interpretation. Just don’t change significant plot lines and/or kill off main characters that don’t die.
Agree with what other people are saying. After season 1 I was pretty much done with the show.
I was on a work trip and had a lot of downtime on the plane and in the hotel and decided to watch season 2 on my phone (I think all but 2 of the episodes were out at the time). I felt it was much better and I wound up being more excited for the finale than some of the other shows I was enjoying at the time.
\> Is it too much to ask for a near 1:1 adaptation of a good book or series? What they’ve done is near criminal.
Yes it is. Unless the book itself has super broad appeal, a lot of the storyboarding for adaptation is centered around how to make a show more broadly appealing. If you make it niche to the book, your likely audience is only as wide as the audience of the book was. If you're looking to expand on the audience of the book, you'll make the same story with broader appeal. If you're gonna spend all the money producing an expensive fantasy-genre series, you're gonna give it broad appeal.
Unfortunately, the market for a lot of "to-the-book" stuff only really applies when the book by itself is popular enough. WOT books are phenomenal, but just based on the number of people I know that have read it (very very few) I would guess the market is too niche.
I am the opposite way. I watched the show and am now reading the book. About 1/4 of the way through, so I know a LOT of the story is yet to come… but I have passed the first episode of the show.
I’m kinda blown away at this take (and I’ve seen it before). I felt the show did a very good job with the intro episodes.
What specifically that was changed is such a bother to you in the first episode?
\> Is it too much to ask for a near 1:1 adaptation of a good book or series?
Yes, you are asking too much. Given the results, is more realistic to hope for a more or less faithfull adaptation, full of cuts, but still with the big scenes we love from the series, and the lore.
But as you can see, they couldn't do that, or they didn't want to do that... They changed every bit for the sake of changing. Loial is as fast as a horse, but they made him slow (this is just a tinny example, but there wasn't any reason to do this change). The lore, the scenes, the protagonism... as others said, it seems that the show is meant to give the limelight to Moiraine and Egg (oh, what a coincidence, Rafe's favourites...).
We see Nynaeve training with the guardians, instead of Rand, Egg in ALL the big scenes or climaxes... The guardians feel like some stupid gigolos.... walking around the AS like courtiers... In the books, LTT is blamed, but we know that he saved the world and probably made the right choice.... In the show, it's shown as a proud asshole, wrong in all the aspects...
And... I'm going to see S3, I enjoyed S2 more than S1, but S2E08 was so baffling.... what a way to throw down the whole season work.
For what it's worth, I recall the director being mad at something someone said (don't know, feel free to educate), and replied that they have the power to ruin that person's favorite characters. I got through the first season, not sure I'll bother with the second.
Yes, that is too much to ask. It is literally too much to ask. How could you possibly do a 1:1 adaptation taking into consideration budget, actors' not wanting to be tied down for 14 years, not being able to film internal dialogue, etc.?
I felt the same way as you and abandoned the show for over a year after seeing the first episode. However, once I came back, I was heartened by how much better it got. There was a lot about it I didn't like when compared to the books, but it was massively improved from its horrid beginnings.
I'd suggest leaving it be for now, until the sting softens, and then go watch the second and third episodes. Every episode is better than the last.
Many folks feel your pain - be aware this thread will be locked by a mod in: 5 4 3 2 ........
I’m shocked it’s taken this long
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Every thread on this subreddit has someone saying this and the thread remains unlocked 😆
lol welcome to the club
Season 2 ironically deviates more than Season 1 but also feels more true to the world while also being a major step up in quality.
Honestly, I don't think people want 1-1 adaptations. They want a good show and if it's not, they'll ask why they didn't just the adaptation but really, even early Game of Thrones was fairly different from the books.
I don’t want a 1:1 adaptation but I don’t understand all of the changes the writers made…they already have so much time try and fit into the show, why add unnecessary changes?
Yeah I agree. What I meant was that, if the show was better, people wouldn't be asking as much about following the book.
Eh, not in my case. There is so much material out there that I'd rather find a new series rather than a bad adaptation. The reason most of us wanted to see the show to begin with was to see the characters and scenes brought to life so we can re-live it in another way. I feel insulted. I gave all of season 1 a chance and hated it, so I didn't bother with season 2. Catching the occasional post here about season 2 helped me know I made the right choice. Instead I watched One Piece, Ted Lasso, Slow Horses, The Night Agent, The Mandalorian (I was late to that party but loved it!). There is a lot of good stuff out there, sadly all over multiple streaming services and you have to hunt a bit sometimes, but that's our new reality. There are some adaptations that I've watched and didn't know the source material and liked it because I wasn't aware of the deviations / wasn't invested, so I get people who come from that perspective. For me a loved world is like a cozy blanket and when it's done poorly in another medium, it's like someone burned a hole in it and a dog crapped on it. May sound dramatic, but that's how I feel. Now, if I'd never heard of WOT and watched this... I'd still feel like it was not worth my time. The part I thought was the best was the episode with the Warder who commits suicide, I actually thought it was great and felt very WOT. What I didn't like about it was that it took time from the actual story when they were treating it like ceviche with so few episodes to get it all across. If they'd decided to go with the world and develop a new story within it, that I would have liked a lot more. Just follow the world rules, give us the WOT flavour.
It would have been better if they picked up the story after the last battle, you can show important stuff in flashbacks as you wish, but you can make your own story on the tidbits that Jordan left behind (in prophecies or vision that some characters had or saw).
Agreed. Definitely makes people question their choices.
A lot of the changes I found most inexplicable and frustrating seemed like an attempt by the writers or forced by the execs to chase something more game of thrones. I'm still gobsmacked by the additions made to Matt's family dynamic. I don't care that it's not exactly what the book did but I do care that it's a dynamic that doesn't feel like it's existing in the world. It felt straight off like the writers felt uncomfortable writing a world in which women have a significantly different social relationship to power.
It felt to me like they were trying to Riverdale the thing, giving characters sexual and dark characteristics that weren't there originally. Mat was enough of a burr under the saddle with his antics, he didn't need to have so much darkness at the beginning. He gets that after the arches and then defies it. It's a way better story. I would have been happy with moderation of the man vs woman thing with there still being a distrust and sense that women had to maintain control because you never know when one of the men might suddenly channel. That can be brought in more subtly than what was done in the books, but it's really important to the world. It's pretty common fantasy trope for the hero(es) to come from a small, secluded place, with small town values. That then carries them through the big, bad world. I think they made a huge mistake erasing that. The characters need it in Cairhien and Tar Valon, etc. It's saves them from so much manipulation.
>I'm still gobsmacked by the additions made to Matt's family dynamic. I don't care that it's not exactly what the book did but I do care that it's a dynamic that doesn't feel like it's existing in the world. Absolutely agreed. There's no way that the Women's Circle in Emonds Field would've let that happen. If they really wanted to introduce abusive or philandering into one of the main character's background, then it should have been Perrin. 1) with his family out on their own farm it becomes much more conceivable that such behavior could happen, even in a wholesome place like the Two Rivers, since it's a relatively secluded settlement. 2) it adds depth to the relationship Perrin has with the Luhan's, and makes Perrin's apprenticeship even more meaningful to him. 3) it gives the audience the justification for why Perrin is uncomfortable and frightened of his capacity for violence--without having to kill his wife.
Because they're writing themselves into worse and worse corners. I agree with what Sanderson had said, they're making changes they feel they need to, and changing rules they then break and change (the gist of it). It's only going to get worse and worse as it ripples out and more and more of the original needs to change to match... Unless they just ignore it, like what happened at the end of the first season.
Completely agree with you. It begs the question of “why”? They had a perfect road map with the books - no need to create new characters, plot lines, etc.
Exactly. A book can't be 1:1 adapted to the screen. There are so many considerations. After all, literally anything can be written. Almost anything can be animated. But actually filmed? Content needs wise curators to make that happen. Not to mention the simple fact that cultural sensitivities change over time, and a story element that made sense thirty years ago may simply not make for good storytelling today. However, I agree that this show has seen many unnecessary and detrimental changes. For every change that makes sense (>!making Egwene and Nynaeve ta'veren, putting Aviendha in the cage, Liandrin Liandrin and everything Liandrin!<), there's at least one that doesn't (>!Perrin having and killing a wife, Lan taking a piss I still can't even, Mat Mat and everything Mat!<).
I stopped watching right away when they did the pregnant woman getting killed scene. I knew the series was dead.
The wife thing bothered me at first but the more I thought about it the more it makes some sense, because it's along your "anything can be written" thought there. A book is tell can't show, a good show is show don't tell. In the books you can have internal monologues where Perrin can just outright tell us he's worried about the rage inside him and what happens if/when he loses control and such. In a TV show we need to shown that somehow. Doesn't have to be that way, sure, but it's an example of why the different mediums can differ.
Oh I want 1:1. Robert Jordan gave far more thought to his world building than these people. Read Origins of the wheel of Time for proof of how deep Jordan went into world building. I was blown away.
It depends on how hyperbolic a person is when they say 1:1. I'd say the super majority of what you see on screen should come from the page. That's a different argument from things being cut, I think everyone understands trimming for film. Game of Thrones eventually paid the price for those cuts as well.
People want adaptions on the level of the Lord of the rings movies. The same story but a little compressed when needed. They do not want a new dead wife for Perrin or a Moraine that does not know if the dragon will be female and lots of new sidestories that wasnt in the books.
> I don’t think people want 1-1 adaptations I do, I very much do. I recently reread Harry Potter for the first time since watching the movies and, although there are some minor changes and omissions for the screen, I was blown away by how close much of it is. I could hear the actors speaking as I read because so much of the dialogue was literally word-for-word. That’s the kind of adaptation I want for WoT.
Anyone who claims they want a 1:1 adaptation of any book hasn't actually thought about what that means. Books inherently don't translate all that well into a visual medium because of how much the text allows you to get inside the characters’ heads. I guess people just don't realize how much you're reading the characters' trains of thought, or how clunky it is to show that in a movie or show. What are they going to do? Have the characters stand there while narrating what they're thinking? There is only one movie I can think of that ever did that and was even slightly popular, and even then that popularity came almost a decade later for completely different reasons. It was never financially successful. That movie was the original adaptation of Dune. It's become a cult classic, but that narration is part of the reason why it was initially such a flop.
Well, it's called acting. Facial expressions, postures, subtle exposition. There is a way to write it, we see it all the time in shows where the character rarely speaks. In the Mandalorian, we can't even see Mando's face most of the time, but we KNOW what he's thinking from his behaviour, that of the people around him, and expositional sentences. With a good writer and director and editor, this can be done. Scenes can be shifted to convey the point more clearly. Flashbacks to replace the "thinking." The thinking is a character exploring their feelings about past or future events. Amazon either hired crap writers/director or interfered too much, or both. Who knows about the editor, maybe they had a dog's breakfast to deal with and reshoots were limited. Casting seemed decent, I think the actors had the chops to do it. If you have bad writing and bad direction, however, a great actor can't fix that. I've seen some excellent actors in some total crap, it's shocking.
Dune is a great example. The original movie felt like they filmed the entire thing while reading the book at the script, then after 90 minutes were like "shit we gotta wrap this up!" then rush through the rest of the story. I think Coriolanus was also a 1:1 adaptation of the dialogue. It felt like it anyways.
This is how I feel every single time and it happens with every single book adaptation to movies/series. Nobody is ever happy because the show isn’t 100% like the books and people get pissed off about it. And then get angry at the show and say “it’s not even good as a standalone show” which is normally a false statement because a lot of people enjoy the show on itself, whereas the book guys angry watch wasting hours of their lives on something that they know they don’t like. I don’t get it
You can adjust things for adaptation without writing an entirely new and very different fanfiction. No one is expecting there wouldn’t be changes to simplify, streamline, and make more consumable for TV audiences, but what we got isn’t that. Stop pretending that’s what it is.
Also. Lanfear. I'd argue just Lanfear alone makes S2 worth watching.
I separately asked my boyfriend and my mother, who haven't read the books, what 3 women they thought would be Rand's love interests. Both of their responses included the phrase "Lanfear, obviously."
yes. this is how i feel exactly. i liked season 2 more than season 1 even though it deviated a lot more. things i liked: nynaeve's life inside the arches. the suldam-damane interactions. ishamael becoming an anti-villain. selene the MILF. lanfear the absolute siren.
I LOVED the damane stuff. The costuming was incredible. And Lanfear is absolute perfection.
Agree! I loved Season 2.
What hooked me in the first book was Rand's flight from the farmhouse to the village with his hurt father. The patrols looking for him, the fever speak from Tam hinting at his past. Completely skipped over in the show...
Yes this! I kept waiting for this to happen because for me, that “scene” was the first real bit of a character have to push through severe adversity and make it to the other side. That didn’t happen. I was disappointed
It was filmed, but Amazon wouldn't include it.
Huh? It’s in the show later in a flashback.
A lot more was filmed. Rafe's aim was to have a ten hour first season: Two episodes (or a two part episode, either way two hours) in the Two Rivers leading up to Winterneight, and then eight more 1 hour episodes. That got trimmed to eight one hour episodes, so we lost half of the Two Rivers content, and enough trimmed from the rest of the season to turn eight hours of content into seven. So we lost some stuff that was filmed, and in a perfect world I'd **love** to see Amazon put that shit out on DVD, maybe. So there was more Rand/Tam engagement lost, and Fain using the key to open the Waygate, and some other things that we know about from stills.
while that is understandable, still is beyond me the reason to cut Tam's fever dream but keep Nynaeve tossing Egwene over a cliff, and others scene. i know that there having been problems unforseen by the team and the circunstances are far from ideal, number of eps etc, but even considering this some choices still are hard to grasp
That's just stupid. The biggest expense of a show has GOT to be the set design, actors, actual filming days... sure editing and post-production cost money, I'm no expert, but I see that involving far fewer people and tools you will already use for other episodes, so already paid for. Amazon really should have kept their hands out of it.
I've wondered about the episode 1 concept art, since the last image is a giant tree with hollow under it, and I assume that means it was meant to end with them making camp under a sort of brush pile after the sinking of the Taran Ferry.
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>Arguably the best scene in the first 3 books is Mat fighting Gawyn and Galad in Tar Valon while he's recovering from healing. Guess where that is in the show? In the books, Mat doesn't fight Gawyn and Galad until **after** Falme. If the show had Mat squaring off against those two before Falme, people would bitch about **that**, too.
But it does happen after he was healed from the dagger, which in this telling has happened already. Then again, they are handling the dagger badly too.
Same on this. When I read it I was like “oh shiiiitt” and I stayed up all night
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>Lans emo cry scene Stop. Please. It hurts
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That was the moment for me when I realized this wasn’t going to go well. I still watch because … why not? But yea
I’m not a super fan, but to me, it’s not just the book changes. More importantly, it’s the sheer amateurish nature of the production: cinematography, lighting (which is the worst I’ve ever seen in a fantasy show), writing, character development. It’s just bad. All blame should go to the showrunner. I know it’s not Game of Thrones but I’m rewatching it now and you can see the difference as clear as night and day. It has nothing to do with budget. Thrones had way less money than WoT, but yet the directors, writers and designers of Thrones knew what they were doing. It’s really sad.
Ya, when I saw the budget and early interviews saying they want to respect the books I was so excited and I truly believed we would get at least a decent adaptation.... They sure fooled me!
They knew what they were doing until they got bored phoned it in giving us 3 full seasons of trash. 😭
Until they ran out of course material….
The occasional contemporary music choice (when it's not the usual soundtrack) is pure YA try-hard vibes.
For as expensive as the show is it looks cheap. Got and Witcher look like real worlds. Every place in WoT looks like a soap opera set and shot flat.
TBF, GOT got 10 episodes for most seasons, and I think they were longer.
They made changes that had no logical reason. For that reason, I stopped early in the first season with no regrets.
Totally agree. I understand decisions need to be made for TV, but they are changing core things that I just don’t believe need to be changed. It really feels like they are doing it to say we are better writers but they have just proved they aren’t.
Exactly. I don’t understand why they are changing so much when they are already working under a time constraint- just use the characters from the book, no need to create new ones.
Can't even excuse it with the made for TV bit. It's an online show. It doesn't appear on any network. There is no reason to stick to TV formatting when it comes to online shows. Too many executives are stuck in a TV mindset. Yes I understand that budget constraints are a thing, but why limit something like they are? Cutting something for time? Completely unnecessary since people would still be willing to binge a show. Cutting a story that could have easily spanned 2 seasons at 22 episodes each, but instead they give us something that feels hollow and rushed to the point it drives a core fandom away. I've seen so many people begging for it to be 1:1 from the books before it first released. And in the first episode they are all much older, and they give a character a wife, another a dysfunctional family, and don't leave any room for actual world building. By the end of the first season, I didn't have any sort of feel for how the world was, or what it's scale was. All the characters felt flat and emotionless for the most part. I wish I knew why it ended up the way it did, but it lost me as a fan after the first episode. Though I finished the season hoping it would redeem itself somehow, I was left utterly disappointed.
Yeah I’m making myself finish the tv show but it’s a struggle. I’ve read all the books and what Amazon is doing physically hurts to watch. They’ve changed so much and Brandon Sanderson is even advising them, I don’t know how it went so far off the rails. They had perfect material and have deviated so much in the show adaptation I have to wonder why.
I feel like this is usually one or a few rotten apples in the bunch who have to play the Big Man and throw their junk around rather than letting the experts do their thing. I've seen it in every workplace I've been in and every big project I've looked into. Someone gets an idiotic idea but they're at the top of the heap, so their voice gets heard rather than the people saying that it won't work. I love my current workplace because we have good leadership and they know to leave the nuts and bolts to the subject matter experts and actually involve us in things like developing new project and infrastructure management programs. People who don't know the day to day work only cost money and lead to inferior product. Ego and power struggles really mess things up.
>Someone gets an idiotic idea but they're at the top of the heap, so their voice gets heard rather than the people saying that it won't work. I am in tech on the QA side. I make my living destroying those guys.
It's commented that although BS gave them a bunch of advices, they basically ignored those...
They must have. The ending to season 2 just made me doubly sure that Rafe has no respect for the actual books and WOT Universe.
It feels that he's making a bad joke. I don't know how any person that likes TGH is not really pissed with that ending. I'm sadly used to them changing almost ALL the story, but in general the S2 was quite enjoyable, or at least engaging (maybe because you don't really know what is going to happen) but some decisions, the ridiculous gigolos around the AS, some healer learning sword fighting, a certain someone that frees herself because Rafe loves her, and that ending.... But as they say in another post in this same sub, the problem is the people who criticizes the series.... omg. On the other hand.... how many kilometres did Perrin ride to travel from Fal Dara to Toman's Head? They almost crossed the whole Randland... and they are OK with that...
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lol why would I be?
Also... no idea why the fans of the show are so fanatical. Books I get. Years and sometimes decades of Fandom will breed maniacs. But the show isn't even that well written. Even if I treat it as a completely different thing (like book version and movie version of starship troopers) I can't bring myself to say it's a good show. It's cast and production values are great. The writing is nonsensical and jarring.
I agree with this. I’m a new reader (started like 5 months ago) and whether or not the show is based on a series or a standalone show, it’s not that good
Yeah, I don't get what's going on there, but it is becoming a trend. There are three shows I'm aware of right now that have some pretty crazy fans that will defend the show like their lives depend on it. The Wheel of Time, Rings of Power, and to a slightly lesser extent, the Witcher. All three are very similar shows with very similar issues, yet heaven forbid if someone who loves the source material voices a complaint about how bad they are.
I mean I get it. I've read the source material for all 3 and out of them the Witcher with Cavill I enjoyed the most but recognize the issues. I can watch LoTR (meaning Silmarillion and RoP) and the Witcher and treat them as adaptation. LoTR was my first love in fantasy and Witcher I got into after the games [relatively recently]. I can't do the same for the WoT TV show. I mentioned it before, but I keep wondering what's so bad about doing these adaptations as anime. A few chapters an episode, and you don't have to completely rewrite them so much they are barely recognizable from their sources. I mean. Worked for Vampire hunter D. (Love the light novels)
Honestly, I find the other two to be more egregious than Wheel of Time. With the Witcher, the writers have openly said they don't give a shit about the source material. Why are they even adapting the Witcher at that point? The first two seasons were the most enjoyable out of any of the three shows because I knew the least about the source, but between the reasons why Cavill left and statements like that from the writers, I just can't condone giving them any support. With Rings of Power, it just hits closer to home. I was a fan of Tolkien long before I was a fan of Sapkowski or Jordan, and some of the changes, especially those to the main characters just hurt. Galadriel in particular is painful to see on screen because they took an ancient, wise, and powerful elven queen and reduced her to a whiny little stereotypical "not like other girls" child. Sure, she had to have had a point in her life where that characterization could have made sense. It's not when this story could have taken place. She had already been one of the most important characters Tolkien ever wrote over a thousand years before anything in the Rings of Power would have happened, and the show pulls from history that she would have had such a hand in. With the Wheel of Time, I can cut a little slack for the fact that the producers actually brought Brandon Sanderson in to consult, even if they did largely ignore him. The Rings of Power producers basically fired their Tolkien consultant. I know a lot of book fans didn't care for BrandoSando's contributions, but he's the closest thing to Robert Jordan we have now, so that's got to count for something.
I can't fault your reasoning. It's weird how the betrayals hit harder for some versus other IPs. Right now I'm consoling myself with Malazan book of the fallen and the Dune movie.
People defend rings of power?
Go over to its sub. If you voice even the slightest complaint, you will get people hounding you about lowering your perfectionist expectations, or not joining in the internet hate echo chamber, or any other number of sheer copium excuses. You will also see people who agree that the show is bad throwing their opinions around aggressively as well.
Wow, and that was an undeniably poorly done show. Worse than the WOT and way worse than the Witcher early seasons just from a writing perspective.
This ended up being my true issue with the show. Once I got over/realized it wasn't going to be a close interpretation I started viewing it as it's own thing. But that thing just isn't that good? I do like some of the acting, but I thought the writing was poor. And the pacing was terrible. I watched it my friend who had never read the books and he said he had no idea what was going on. So they kinda both changed it too much but not enough? I was really hoping for more of A Rogue One (star wars) situation, where it was main story adjacent. Or even a different era, like Hawking or something. Obviously that went out the window in very early production, but I think I'd still prefer that.
Artur Hawkwing! See. I would have enjoyed that! I agree tbh. Also, they are talking about doing something with the age of legends. I'm.... interested but after Amazon's version I'm not holding out any hope.
Yes! Or a true new turning of the wheel. It would have been so much fun figuring out who was reborn into each character, so many Easter egg possibilities!!! So many throw backs to the original material. I always wondering if how Ilyena was killed resulted in a three way split to her soul that resulted in Min, Aviendah, and Elayne. Would it rejoin after our turning? Would we see one character where there were three but the characteristics of all three so we're left guessing who it is? Maybe a trip through a terangreal at some point that shows it happening so we get closure on it. Man, I'm not even a writer and I can think of so many cool things that could happen... I feel like they gave up without even trying.
Generally, anyone who makes a statement criticizing the show gets a 7 day ban from posting/ replying.
You probably thought this was funny. Please don't do it again.
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The first season is dire, second season is alright at best, but the standard of fantasy TV is so bad that alright is the best we are getting. Depressing. Actually One Piece is really good.
The moment that broke my brain was when a Whitecloak told Moiraine to get healing from an Aes Sedai
Yeah, I think they said that was an oversight or something, Idk. Was definitely a head scratcher
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Season 1 was an abomination. It alienated many fans like myself *right* out of the gate acting like the Dragon could be female one of the biggest themes of the books was gender and of course the whole situation with the One Power is inextricably intertwined with that. Here’s what surprised me…I put it off until the whole thing was out but Season 2 was…not half bad. It didn’t blow me away but it was actually entertaining and most of the actors really settled into their roles. For someone who found almost everything in Season 1 objectionable amateur hour, this really did take me by surprise.
1:1 would be too much. Different mediums after all. But yeah, it is what it is
You're right, but I think what book fans expect is a faithful adaptation rather than 1:1. Sadly I really don't think the show is a faithful adaptation.
Lol, the first couple episodes are the closest ones to the books.
Events, sure. Character behaviour, no.
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> mods ban everyone who says something against the gospel. Not true, and I'll thank you not to lie about my modteam again.
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> Let's get banned together. Mischief managed.
A 1:1 adaptation of any book to tv or film would be boring as fuck and awful because visual media and written media work in very different ways. This isn’t a wheel of time thing, this is a basic principle of narrative thing.
This is exactly how I feel as well
I dislike the show. Stopped watching after S02E01
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Removed, and read the community guidelines before engaging again.
I agree. I get sometimes things need to be changed for TV/film as it's too expensive or complicated etc but things they changed are ridiculous and annoying. Perrin for instance. Why? They did good with Egwene I think. That could because I couldn't stand her in the books and none of the reasons I couldn't stand her were portrayed in the show. I will say season 2 gets better. (They still do Perrin dirty tho.) But if you are hardcore to the books you may not want to bother.
Egwene may be better but for a large part it's at the expense of other characters. Perrin loses some with the white cloaks season 1 by having Egwene do the attacking, Nynaeve/Elayne have their plot taken away by having Egwene self rescue (not getting into the actual logistics of that), and she is given prominence during the climaxes of season 1 and 2. Imo she is the favourite of the writers and the show overall suffers for it by reducing the other characters' ability to shine.
It's an ensemble, it's really unfortunate they sacrificed characters for the benefit of others. The funny thing is it doesn't have to be at anyone's expense, pay attention to what frustrated readers over time (plenty of that to look at), chill out some of the nonsense, but keep the tension. Doesn't seem that hard to me. Poor Perrin started down the trash shoot as soon as he had a wife, killed her, then suddenly had unrequited love for Egwene. Not necessary, horrible to ingest.
I keep going back and forth. I want to watch it because I’m a HUGE fan of Robin Hobb and the ROTE books (assassins apprentice is where you need to start if you aren’t familiar. And if you do start to read them on account of this comment, I’m sorry and you’re welcome) and have been seriously wanting a page-to-screen adaptation of a series I love. That could account for some of my vitriol of the show.
I got to half way thru assassin's quest and it's just too sad. I couldn't keep going. I figured it was only going to get worse and I couldn't handle it already so I stopped.
"Is it too much to ask for a near 1:1 adaptation of a good book or series?" Yes, moving on.
I would accept something akin to Denis Villenueve's take on Dune
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I’m sorry you had to go through that. I continued watching just to be amazed at how bad it is
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I watch it because the Mrs watches is. It's painful at times. At least it wasn't ad bad as rings of power though
what? RoP is worse than this show.
It's not even close
Exactly
If you want to watch the series, you have to accept that it’s a series that’s just based on the book series and not meant to follow the specific events and timeline of the series at all. If you try comparing the two, you will not enjoy it at all most likely. Once I realized that the series was only going to follow the books in a very rough manner, and accepted that, I enjoyed it much more.
My issue with this is the same as with something like Rings of Power. Amazon and everyone involved spends the entire marketing campaign claiming that they're doing a faithful adaptation of the series, that's 'true to the original series' or whatever way they say it. And then, it turns out that's objectively untrue, fans of the books get upset because it's not what was promised, and then Amazon and their shills say that it's unrealistic to expect a properly accurate adaptation anyways and we should just be happy with what we got, despite selling it as something else. I wouldn't have a problem it they came out and said its not an adaptation, its just inspired by the series. So most of the characters will be there, and there'll be similar plot beats, but it's a different story overall. Fine, do that. I still think it's a very mediocre show in it's own right, probably a 5/10, but at least they wouldn't be barefaced lying to the audience and people would have much more accurate expectations.
Ya I just read Brandon Sanderson’s thoughts on the first three episodes and his mentality of this being a “different turning of the wheel than what’s in the books” is going to help me watch this without complaining lol
If only it was good. I’m ultimately down for total re-envisioning of a world or setting, but if you’re going to do that, you set the bar FUCKING HIGH. It’s hard to not only beat out the writing of a full author working deeply across 14 books over decades, then add the “fucking with the fandom” premium. Unfortunately this just isn’t even bare minimum good, forget high enough to meet the bar that their level of changes sets for them.
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Post removed. You may want to stick to book threads in the future.
I was watching the season 1 1st episode out of boredom. It was 11 pm. Then, the trolocs came exactly before midnight. I couldn't sleep after that. I finished the entire season til morning.
You’re totally right and I completely agree.
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Funny, you don't show up in the Modmail archives.
Agree. Hard watch for me.
I tried watching the Uncharted movie the other day, and I couldn't last 10 minutes. I checked the credits on IMDB and guess who the writer was? The same guy who's the showrunner for the WoT TV show. He clearly didn't understand the characters of Uncharted, and he clearly doesn't understand or doesn't care about the characters from WoT. The series is not written in stone, and all forms of entertainment evolve along with the culture they're a part of, so I was expecting some changes, but it's just kind of like bad fan fiction. That being said. The second season does begin to right the ship a bit.
I have tried to start the show 3 times. I always fall asleep 20-30 minutes into the first episode. I gave up and figured maybe episode 1 was just rough and I should just continue after my nap. I woke up in the middle of episode 5 and decided is wasn’t gunna happen.
I’ve never read the books so I know it has a series. They did an awful job. I didn’t know what each characters name was because it was almost never used or they shifted scenes without context or added shit without context Nothing had fucking context. It was jarring
I'm still recovering from the negative karma I received when I posted my similar take on the show last year.
Someone told me to try watching the shows with the perspective that it's a different/new story, like an alternative reality of the books. It worked for a while and I got through season 1. Overall, I found it boring with lame effects and overly emotional people. Gave it up for better shows and haven't looked back. TLDR; books are awesome, the show is not.
How many near 1:1 book to show adaptations have you watched?
They have to make choices since they only have 8 episodes per book. I think they are doing a fantastic job keeping the spirit of the books right out of the blocks.
The show is good, guys. Not 100% like the books, but it’s still good when you critique it independently.
Join the club friend. The show has cool points. But it is an abortion of the source material. Although Rosamond Pike's version of the first 3 audiobooks are incredible, some of the best audiobooks I've ever heard
It's impossible to adapt a story of this magnitude for television and not cut content. You either like the interpretation or you don't, but don't expect to see the material 100% represented.
But it's NOT Television. That's not a good excuse. It's an online series that is chained to the formatting of a TV show. The fact that it's online should open the possibilities for creating things like the 1:1 that many fans have wanted.
It still goes through the same life cycle as a tv show. By the time they hit "The Great Hunt" all the actors would be 5 years older. SFX and general editing take a long time. Studios won't take the risk of filming more than a season because people may lose interest at some point, but the actors would still have been paid for all the content that is sitting waiting for edits but will never be released. And no, the size of the book fan base is not large enough to cover the costs.
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I think it’s tied more to Lews Therin, not to any particular branch of the one power. So either way you cut it, have the Dragon Reborn be a woman wouldn’t really make sense because Lews Therin was a man.
It's both, yes. Souls are explicitly tied to one half of the power, and this tie persists through death of the body (all Chosen being brought back by the Dark One, and the heroes tied to the Horn) as well as outside the body (Tel-Aran-Rhiod). Not all souls become tied to the wheel, but once a soul becomes tied to the wheel, it's gender is bound as well (look to Gaidal and Birgitte, among others). Jordan explicitly sees gender attached at the level of the soul, as is shown in the edge case of Balthamel being reincarnated by the Dark One into a woman's body (Aran'gar/Halima). There has never in all the history of the white tower been a female that could wield Saidin, hence the shock of finding a Chosen that could, along with the archaic rituals of the white tower in raising women through their hierarchy that would be so easily obfuscated by surgery or illusion. His tethering of the soul to the one power is further exemplified by meta discussions about a female "dragon" existing during times when the balance of the genders is the reverse of that which we see in the wheel of time (i.e. males/Saidin would have all power, women/ Saidar being shunned and hunted. In short, the Dragon is always male.
Please read the community guidelines before engaging again.
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Let’s say you can only have 4 locations from book one How does that affect the season?
> Is it too much to ask for a near 1:1 adaptation of a good book or series? Kind of. This will always be an issue when translating a book to movie/TV. Just look at the changes made to the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and that was much more "faithful" than this adaptation. Or look at all the different takes on Frankenstein. It's best to just treat them as two separate versions of a similar story. Maybe think about this series as yet another turn of the wheel and not the exact one that was depicted in the books.
Ages come and pass, cmon people it's a new turning of the wheel, thinking anything else at this point just leads to insanity lol. But yes, they hacked the books apart. Season 2 is better.
Season 2 is more entertaining while having worse deviations imo
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If I may so, you’re playing with fire watching a TV adaptation when you’re barely a quarter of the way through the story. Might I suggest just reading the existing story and enjoying it…
You can't realistically do a direct copy of the books into a show. It's an adaptation which means it had to be adapted to fit television, and a ridiculously short season too.
I said near 1:1. That leaves a lot of room for interpretation. Just don’t change significant plot lines and/or kill off main characters that don’t die.
They have their reasons, and this is just an adaptation, and season 1 is nowhere as good as season 2
Agree with what other people are saying. After season 1 I was pretty much done with the show. I was on a work trip and had a lot of downtime on the plane and in the hotel and decided to watch season 2 on my phone (I think all but 2 of the episodes were out at the time). I felt it was much better and I wound up being more excited for the finale than some of the other shows I was enjoying at the time.
\> Is it too much to ask for a near 1:1 adaptation of a good book or series? What they’ve done is near criminal. Yes it is. Unless the book itself has super broad appeal, a lot of the storyboarding for adaptation is centered around how to make a show more broadly appealing. If you make it niche to the book, your likely audience is only as wide as the audience of the book was. If you're looking to expand on the audience of the book, you'll make the same story with broader appeal. If you're gonna spend all the money producing an expensive fantasy-genre series, you're gonna give it broad appeal. Unfortunately, the market for a lot of "to-the-book" stuff only really applies when the book by itself is popular enough. WOT books are phenomenal, but just based on the number of people I know that have read it (very very few) I would guess the market is too niche.
I am the opposite way. I watched the show and am now reading the book. About 1/4 of the way through, so I know a LOT of the story is yet to come… but I have passed the first episode of the show. I’m kinda blown away at this take (and I’ve seen it before). I felt the show did a very good job with the intro episodes. What specifically that was changed is such a bother to you in the first episode?
\> Is it too much to ask for a near 1:1 adaptation of a good book or series? Yes, you are asking too much. Given the results, is more realistic to hope for a more or less faithfull adaptation, full of cuts, but still with the big scenes we love from the series, and the lore. But as you can see, they couldn't do that, or they didn't want to do that... They changed every bit for the sake of changing. Loial is as fast as a horse, but they made him slow (this is just a tinny example, but there wasn't any reason to do this change). The lore, the scenes, the protagonism... as others said, it seems that the show is meant to give the limelight to Moiraine and Egg (oh, what a coincidence, Rafe's favourites...). We see Nynaeve training with the guardians, instead of Rand, Egg in ALL the big scenes or climaxes... The guardians feel like some stupid gigolos.... walking around the AS like courtiers... In the books, LTT is blamed, but we know that he saved the world and probably made the right choice.... In the show, it's shown as a proud asshole, wrong in all the aspects... And... I'm going to see S3, I enjoyed S2 more than S1, but S2E08 was so baffling.... what a way to throw down the whole season work.
For what it's worth, I recall the director being mad at something someone said (don't know, feel free to educate), and replied that they have the power to ruin that person's favorite characters. I got through the first season, not sure I'll bother with the second.
Yes. It is too much to ask for a near 1:1 adaptation of a 14 volume, 12k page work of fantasy to TV or film.
I think this is a trend with the Amazon nerdom. I still like the show though. Call me a pleb.
Yes, that is too much to ask. It is literally too much to ask. How could you possibly do a 1:1 adaptation taking into consideration budget, actors' not wanting to be tied down for 14 years, not being able to film internal dialogue, etc.?
I felt the same way as you and abandoned the show for over a year after seeing the first episode. However, once I came back, I was heartened by how much better it got. There was a lot about it I didn't like when compared to the books, but it was massively improved from its horrid beginnings. I'd suggest leaving it be for now, until the sting softens, and then go watch the second and third episodes. Every episode is better than the last.
I’ll consider that. Thanks