Ars Technica has a series-recap-thing going on for "The Wheel of Time" series on Amazon: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2021/11/two-book-readers-recap-the-first-three-episodes-of-amazons-the-wheel-of-time/
In the event that you dislike people ruining great books for stupid political agendas, perhaps you should steer clear of this review of Amazon's TV Series.
These recaps won't cover every element of every episode, but they will contain major spoilers for the show and the book series. If you want to stay unspoiled and haven't read the books, these recaps aren't for you.
#1 The way magic works in the Wheel of Time (WoT) is crucial to the plot of the entire series. This is ignored entirely in the first three episodes. Which makes me think, they're going to be doing even more stupid things.
#2 Being inclusive and trying to say, but the girls should also be included as possible main plot "Dragon Reborn" hype is stupid. Egwene goes from village girl to badass quite well on her own in the books, thank you very much.
#3 Lan in the first few episodes sucks. In the books, he can take a few dozen trollocs on his own. Whereas in the first few episodes, Moiraine is barely able to take down a nice grouped up bunch? That is stupid beyond words. (We will gloss over the deliberate destruction of the town's property, because apparently it's easier to throw bricks.)
#4 Mat is a thief and his parents are evil, essentially. His Mom is a drunk, apparently driven to it by his Dad who is shown as unfaithful and essentially a deadbeat.
#5 There is a lot of sexing going on. This is a long ways away from Perrin and his lady falling down the stairs on top of each other and being embarassed.
#6 Where is Elyas?
This is no faithful adaptation from the books. In the event that you happened to like "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe", but were put off by "The Silver Chair", because they turned Peter into a whiny brat... you will be even more put off by the random stupid changes they made in this book. Rand wasn't always a brooding semi-sociopath and Mat is a lot more honorable than portrayed by these first few episodes.
[...] Probably the most annoying things to me are the twisting of characters and plot to make them more "woke". Like, if they'd added a scene in Lord of the Rings where someone asks, if Frodo and Samwise are gay. You know, because they are traveling together, so you must be gay. What kind of stupid?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 26 2021, @09:02PM (16 children)
You puds are predictable. Misogyny in scifi/fantasy has a long standing tradition. So the show makes it possible a woman can be the dragon and you find that intolerable? Says a fuckload about you that it pisses you off and consider a political motivation. TV and movies always fuck things up, but only when there is any sense of feminism do you react this way. The reviewers themselves didn't much care, just noted it as a change from the books. Such insecurity, much wow.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by MostCynical on Friday November 26 2021, @09:25PM (13 children)
I think you have mis-read the complaint.. and, I suspect, from your comment, you haven't read the books..
The Dragon reborn could NOT be female - it is intrinsic to the entire way magic works in the books - fundamentally different for males and females - this is an essential plot point that matters as a key issue for the entire 2 billion* pages - you can't change this without fundamentally changing the mechanics of the whole story universe. This reviewers may not care - but the people who have read the books and hoped for a 'reasonable' version of the story to make it to screen certainly do.
This is not about "insecurity" or 'fairness to women'. Women in the story are powerful - they run the place -even the non-magical women have more positions of power than men.
Magical men go mad - this is very important to the every aspect of the world, as men with magical powers can't be trusted - at all. Now turn this on its head (as in the show) and suddenly the basis of the entire political structure, hundreds of years of backstory are all... redundant. When an author spend as much time as Robert Jordan in world-building, and someone comes along and breaks it so casually.. in the name of 21st C 'fairness' and 'equal opportunity'..
"Why shouldn't a girl be able to do it too?" is not only redundant, but ridiculous - read the books.
*actually 15 books, 704 total chapters and 4.4 million words source [towardsdatascience.com]
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 26 2021, @10:38PM (11 children)
https://dragonmount.com/forums/topic/110440-a-female-dragon-examining-the-evidence/ [dragonmount.com]
There is a mentally healthy take. Movies and shows always change stuff, but for some reason gender changes are the ones that garner outrage the most. If there was a more balanced approach to such complaints that would be fine, but the angry shrieking about "woke politics" is an immediate indicator of misogyny. In my search I also found reference to Amaresu as the female counterpart to the dragon called upon when a woman is needed to fight the great evil.
Thank you for your reply, it was well grounded and not ranty, unlike the submitted story commentary. I only watched some of the first epusode, it didn't hook me, but the very first scene was two men hunted for being channelers, so that cultural aspect remains intact. As the review I posted theorizes they might maintain that the Dragon is male, though I expect they'll maintain the possibility. It hardly changes the entire context of the books.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by MostCynical on Friday November 26 2021, @11:28PM (8 children)
if your world-view is based on "all men with magic go mad", then there is a basic, inherent issue with trust.
Most of one continent's governments are managed, controlled, influenced.. by female magicians.
Other continents have enslaved female magicians, and killed male magicians outright.
If a female could use the tainted (book: male) magic, they could be tainted, and also go mad.
Removing this separation does change the entire context of every aspect of the world-building.
The show could be good - but it is only 'based-on' the books.
Some have forgiven Lucas for Midichlorians and R2D2 flying.. some will enjoy this show despite the revisions.
I have only watched 4 minutes, so haven't made up my mind.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 27 2021, @12:04AM (6 children)
Yes, I didn't much care for that aspect. I didn't read all the books, maybe just 1 or 2 so I don't know how it actually played out. That said, making it possible for women to be the Dragon would make a decent shift away from the "men go crazy" aspect and add a little more equality. Men and women go crazy with power, we simply aren't that different once you remove cultural influences.
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 27 2021, @02:23AM (5 children)
It had nothing to do with going crazy with power. Male and Female accessed different sources of power to use magic. The male source was tainted and drove its users literally insane. It's the basis for most of the world building and social structures of the story. Making the "Dragon Reborn" female just doesn't fit in that world. It is cramming woke bullshit in where it doesn't fit.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 27 2021, @02:32AM (4 children)
"It is cramming woke bullshit in where it doesn't fit."
There is a place where it actually fits?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 27 2021, @02:42AM (1 child)
Up SJWs' assholes.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 27 2021, @06:52AM
RWNJ incel total headburst alert! Oh My God (who is male, by the way), how could they have gender swapped a main character, because now, you heartless bastards, I am homosexually jacking of, to a Woman? Ewwww! I only do, well, you know. We fascist incel homos are rather "exclusive" if you know what I mean. Now, get me khallow on the vid-phone, stat!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Saturday November 27 2021, @08:09PM (1 child)
Its their prep work and practice task for rewriting the history books to make them the good guys.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 28 2021, @01:32AM
TIL a racist prick that wants to murder political opponents thinks he is the good guy. I'm not shocked, just disappointed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 27 2021, @06:41AM
Except they didn't? I mean I get it, you watched 4 minutes, that's enough to judge everything. If you do, however, watch more, you'll see that they still say men that channel go mad.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by khallow on Saturday November 27 2021, @12:09AM (1 child)
Why would there be gender changes? Some stuff is obvious because you're compressing a large book into a small movie. You can't squeeze in every oddball subplot or scene. But gender changes too often are transparently ideological and/or prurient - attempts to shoehorn the story into the usual oppressive or lucrative channels that Hollywood has peddled for generations. From the discussion above, it appears this is a problem with this series as well.
These things are often the more noticeable ways that the soul of Hollywood leers at the audience.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 27 2021, @01:43AM
Captain Marvel
Black Oanther
Nuff said
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 27 2021, @07:53PM
"in the name of 21st C 'fairness' and 'equal opportunity'.."
The Cultural Marxists (Jews and their Shabbos Goy) have moved on from "equal opportunity" and now insist on "equity". So, equal *outcome* by whatever means necessary. Or so they think.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 26 2021, @10:16PM
Fragile egos on display, QED.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 27 2021, @07:13PM
... about Albert Einstein, as a white supremacist lesbian woman.
May i ask for a donation? U can pick the color of the hair on the biatch =)
-zug
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 26 2021, @09:08PM (6 children)
When you cross a mentally ill loner with a SOCIETY that ABANDONS him and TREATS him like TRASH?
.
I'll tell you what you get
.
YOU GET WHAT YOU FUCKING DESERVE!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 26 2021, @09:17PM
You get apathy. Whatcha gonna do about it?!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 26 2021, @10:47PM (4 children)
Funny thing, incel's most vuable allies are liberals. Support for universal healthcare that would cover mental health issues? Luberal policies. Universal education to help people get job skills? Liberal policies. Support for coping with toxic masculinity that drives some men into despair? Liberals by and large.
There are decent conservatives that don't buy into the nasty rightwing shit so it isn't purely a political divide. Also radical feminists do espouse a ton of misandry that is comolicated by the rampant misogyny in society, but generally if you aren't oushing misogyny even they can be allies.
Men having a miserable time in society would do well to branch out and consider that their conceptions of who is an enemy could be drastically mistaken. In fact, many times rightwing groups lean into the shitshow to better control the suckers they can convince to commit their violence for them.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 27 2021, @02:22AM (1 child)
72 virgins for blowing up some libs tho. Tough choice.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 27 2021, @05:32PM
Only you care about your sibling religious feud. Christians and Muslims can go fuck themselves with all the hate and violence they've caused over the last few millenia.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Saturday November 27 2021, @08:06PM (1 child)
The FBI is playing their own long game when they encourage violence.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 28 2021, @01:36AM
You can't blame the big bad gubmint when your own leaders are calling for murderous violence. Besides, you KKK types have plenty of moles in law enforcement agencies. Check out project Chisel, you rightwing terrorists are already in the crosshairs even with your inside fascists.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 26 2021, @09:21PM (4 children)
Was Peter even in The Silver Chair? Are you sure you're not thinking of Eustace, who was cured of whiney brat in the previous book through the grace of
Jesus ChristAslan?The BBC film of Silver Chair was actually better than the book imho, and Tom Baker was a decent Puddleglum. Silver Chair is the worst book in the series, and Voyage of the Dawn Treader and Silver Chair seem to be where all film adaptations die.
However, the Last Battle should be appealing for you. Susan began to wear rouge and pretty clothes, probably also got ideas about equality for women and the fraud of gender dichotomy, and so was deported.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Saturday November 27 2021, @06:47AM (3 children)
The Last Battle was by far the worst book of the Narnia series.
C.S. Lewis was a Christian apologist. His prose is excellent, and the stories are enjoyable if one can just roll with the blatant Christian worldview and the tropes of fantasy generally. If not, you're going to hate the whole thing.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday November 27 2021, @10:38PM (2 children)
My least favorite was the Horse and His Boy. I never knew there was such diverse difference of opinion among Soylentils on the Chronicles of Narnia.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Sunday November 28 2021, @07:42PM (1 child)
Huh, why that one?
In any case, a basic problem with the series is deus ex machina in the form of Aslan. Aslan can obviously make events go almost any way He wishes. It's very arbitrary when He pops up, and when He doesn't. Maybe that's what you dislike about the Horse and His Boy?
In that story, it's
Yes, much room for "how it should have ended" parodies.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Sunday November 28 2021, @08:13PM
The Chronicles of Narnia are Christian allegory, so of course Aslan can make events go any way he wishes. That's the whole point of Christ: if you believe in him you have nothing to fear, even death. He is the ultimate deus ex machina. If you don't accept that premise then the books won't appeal to you on a certain level, in the same way that the explicit Islamic references in the One Thousand and One Nights might not appeal to you in the same way it would a Muslim; however, you can still appreciate them for their storytelling.
It has been about forty years since I read the Horse and His Boy so I can't remember exactly why I didn't like it as much. It seemed a little duller than the rest. As a kid, the Voyage of the Dawn Treader was my favorite for Reepicheep and the redemption of Eustace. As an older teenager when I finally read the Magician's Nephew, it edged out Dawn Treader for its portrayal of Charn and the wood between the worlds.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Snotnose on Friday November 26 2021, @10:14PM (4 children)
I read the first book around 2000 or so and was "meh". As the series was trending on Usenet or whatever I read in those days I started book 2, and gave up halfway through.
I should mention that, while I enjoy hyperdrive, alien civilizations, laser pulses, and planet destroying bombs; I usually don't enjoy hand waving, dragons, and powers that follow a gene line. In other words, fantasy disguised as sci fi is ok, fantasy as fantasy I don't get into. Whatevs.
I am enjoying the series. No where near as good as White Collar (which I just finished binging, check it out), but an entirely different genre and intended audience. The show is pretty good.
Seriously, if you want good TV watch The Americans and White Collar.
But I digress. I still have my 2000 edition of book 1 of Wheel of Time around here somewhere, wonder if it's worth my time to ebay it.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Saturday November 27 2021, @01:17AM (2 children)
The Americans and White Collar are both good series. I'd add that the fun thing about the Americans was that it re-told the history of the 80's from a putative Russian/KGB perspective. That, I think, is a much more interesting way to approach established canons and historical events than the rash of ret-conning that has dominated film and TV for the last decade.
Imagine how different and interesting it would have been to not destroy Star Wars as Disney did, but to put in installments that told things from the Imperial perspective. The Mandalorian series touched on a little bit of that when a former Imperial storm trooper went PTSD on his old, brutal commander.
If you do it that way, you don't have to reboot series like Star Trek had to. You don't alienate your loyal fan base in order to bring the canon back to the screen and win new fans, because they'd love to be along for the ride. If it's based on events in history, you can ask new questions without projecting modern political sensibilities backward onto established facts.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Saturday November 27 2021, @04:24AM (1 child)
The world you imagine, where people make stories based on their ideologies and share them, rather than shove them down everyone's throat with the barrel of a gun... a magical place. I wish we lived there.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Saturday November 27 2021, @06:19AM
There is nothing wrong with telling stories from different perspectives, but they ought to be told honestly. Overwriting established canons is Orwellian.
Robert Jordan is dead, so he can't object to the adaptation. But he certainly wrote enough books with enough pages to figure out what he meant the story to say. Hijacking that to push one's own agenda is dishonorable, to say the least. It even doesn't make any sense in this particular case, since women play such a prominent, powerful role in the story as written.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Saturday November 27 2021, @06:59AM
I chugged along through the end of book 7. Yeah, I found the series barely better than "meh". Had its draggy parts before that, but almost the entirety of book 7 was one long slog. So, for book 8, I read only those chapters that start with Rand's actions. Haven't troubled to read further.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Frigatebird on Friday November 26 2021, @10:34PM
Freeman is neither "woke" (whatever that means), nor gay, and really wants more Christian allegory fantasy lit. Now I am all spoiled.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 26 2021, @11:51PM (10 children)
Lets do a 'woke' destruction most of the content of the books.
The last robot killing for the Empire.
COMPLETELY different plotline.
Many characters now female, and black.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 27 2021, @12:07AM (5 children)
OH NO THEY CHANGED THEIR SKIN COLOR OMG SQUEEEEE
fookin degens
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 27 2021, @02:33AM (3 children)
When it's done over and over again, to the point that black lesbians are overrepresented in mass media by orders of magnitude, it becomes tiresome, not squee-worthy.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 27 2021, @05:35PM (2 children)
Oh look, racist homophobia! God this place is infested with scum. Guess I'm the only one unaware of all the black lesbians in TV shows now. Weird how you had no comaints when media was almost exclusively white people. Curious!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Saturday November 27 2021, @10:45PM (1 child)
Out of curiosity, do you travel to Beijing and wag your finger at the Chinese for over-representing Han in their popular media and not casting enough Tibetans, Mongols, and Uighurs? Do you travel to Germany and bristle that they have too many Germans in their shows? When blowing through Dubai do you scream how they have too many Arabs? In Addis Ababa do you launch protests in front of their studios because they don't put enough of a spotlight on the struggles of the Latinx among them? Does it anger you that Seoul does not place nearly enough of its street signs with bilingual Korean + Swahili?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 28 2021, @01:39AM
You christians are so sad. LOVE JESUS you say, while undermining every one of his teachings. I dream of the day when christians actually follow Jesus instead of using him as some glorified excuse to commit genocide.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 27 2021, @08:02PM
Race is not about skin color, you dumb Goy race traitor.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 27 2021, @07:39AM (3 children)
Didn't they do that in Shannara Chronicles? Let's make one single elf black because Woke
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday November 27 2021, @10:50PM (2 children)
In a fantasy setting in which it was not specified how the characters looked, have at it. Who you cast in those roles is a directorial decision and if the director does it poorly or with too much of a paint-by-numbers overlay, then fans will probably judge it poorly. If it's done well, it can be additive to the original story.
It's when you do something like morph Boromir into Xena that you lose the plot.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 28 2021, @08:03AM (1 child)
Let's compare.
The leader of The Order of the Stick is brown. I can't say I ever noticed. The only references are to him being human. This does not stand out or affect the story
Damaged
The elves in Shanarra are all white. Except one. Why? Is she evil? A traitor? A different race? A "dark" elf? Damaged somehow? Reverse albino? They don't say... and it is distracting.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday November 28 2021, @09:15PM
In other words, if more of the elves had been black, it wouldn't have been a problem?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by looorg on Saturday November 27 2021, @01:16AM (3 children)
I have not seen any of the four episodes released so far. A few friends that really like the book series had nothing good to say about this adaptation tho. I'll watch it eventually unless it totally goes down in flames and I have nothing better to do.
But more in general there appears to be an overall trend so this isn't all that surprising. The surprise is why they keep doing it over and over again and then wonder why people think it's shit.
Cause this seems to happen to a lot of movies and tv-shows based on books and comics. They want to borrow the lore, the fanbase and parts of the story and then they go about reworking other parts of it to fit some current agenda or idea of how things should be. It tends to be bad. The old fans will be pissed and most people that never heard of it before either don't care or don't know or are just not that interested in it to begin with.
I doubt this show will build some kind of new fan base on people that have not read the books. They might but it won't last long. At least not long enough to cover the books.
After Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones (and all the Marvel stuff etc) they more or less signed up every fantasy, scifi, whatever franchise they could and it seems the writers just can't help themselves. They just have to change things just for some reason. Even tho they are more or less handed ready scripts in some form or another that just have to be translated. They don't need that kind of story rework. The stories are not becoming better cause characters all of a sudden change sex, skin colour or how much they fuck or whom they do it with. It just usually makes it worse.
Game of Thrones became worse and worse the longer it got and the last couple of episodes, or season, just didn't make any sense at all. It really had become the "oh tits and dragons!"-show. With a big big budget so more dragons, more battles and more tits. Story be damned.
Same thing happened quite recently with Y: the last man on TV. The show had just bare things in common with the comic. Instead they shifted focus toward it becoming some kind of pro-woman political show. While the main focus of the comic was more or less all about Yorick and the journey (and some other things but it was never a political drama). Here that almost become some sidetrack to the show. Result? Cancelled before the first season was complete. It just become so shit it was unwatchable.
If you pay money to buy the rights to something I kind of expect you to make that thing. Not to make a new thing set in about or a bought setting. The story they want to tell about current events and politics just doesn't fit.
In some regard it seem to be the same with remakes of any kind. They are just never, or very rarely, as good as the original. The new crap just doesn't fit in and it feels forced and crap. One wonders why considering they are spending millions on getting the rights to make them and then just take a big dump on everything.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 27 2021, @02:32AM (1 child)
I never watched Game of Thrones, it just sounded like political bullshit in a fantasy world. Your dispassionate review has convinced me that there might be more to it, so I will check out a few episodes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 27 2021, @06:56AM
Tits? TMB still checks in a AC, once in a while. Too bad he never managed a complete human relationship with someone of the opposite gender.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 27 2021, @02:33AM
Exception is Bad News Bears (2005) which is much better than the original.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Saturday November 27 2021, @01:54AM (4 children)
My wife read ten of the 14 novels, I hadn't read any. She didn't like that they made the ta'veren older and sexually active. She didn't like that they opened the possibility that the Dragon could be reborn as a woman (apparently since it broke the central mechanism of the world's magic). She also disputed how diverse the little, apparently very isolated, mountain village was; she felt that after a thousand years everyone should have looked a lot more homogeneous. Lastly, she thought that the TV portrayal of Nynaeve was not mean enough.
I had no sense of established canon, so I enjoyed the cinematography. It was refreshing that they didn't film in New Zealand. :-) The special effects were good, especially the dead city of Shadar Logoth. Moiraine and Lan were the only main characters that were interesting; the rest were pretty flat. The supporting characters like Rand's dad with his mysterious past or Thom Merrilin or the White Cloak Questioner Eamon Valda had more dimension in their limited screen time. The Logain guy had interesting subtlety, too. It seemed that there's a pastiche of Tolkien and other fantasy references in the story, like how Mat's actions in the dead city echo Pippin's in Moria. Overall, the story seems a mildly engaging thought study of a world where women are the tyrants.
I do, however, want to read the books now instead of waiting for Prime to mete its episodes out in drips and drabs. Binge or nothin', baby.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 27 2021, @04:48AM (2 children)
I was thinking similarly - but for different reasons. Consider a middle-ages European town. How much diversity is there, really? Probably next-to-none. So it's not representative of how things happen at all.
Really, I feel like they're doing themselves the opposite service: to maintain so many diverse classes, there must be *EXTREME* segregation going on. Otherwise it would be bred out. The only way to maintain that diversity, at all, is to have an absolutely flawless sense of segregation.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 27 2021, @05:08AM
The TV producers aren't thinking about the implications or coming up with explanations. Just meeting the diversity quotas for the shows they crap out, even if it is a medieval fantasy. The quotas can be implicit, or explicit like at BBC Studios.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday November 29 2021, @03:23PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 27 2021, @06:55AM
let me save you some time: don't read the books.
"wheel of time" --- first two books are great, then everything starts going down hill. because instead of expanding on the established world, the author chooses to focus on more and more minute details, and then suddenly pulls out world-expansions as deus ex-machina when needed to fix some plot holes.
the entire "wheel of time" concept is never used for anything but detached philosophy about how everything is the same but everything is different. I kept reading because I kept wanting to see different cycles of the wheel. spoiler alert: flashbacks and flashforwards concern the current era, nothing is revealed about past and future incarnations of these characters.
I kept reading because I had nothing better to do at the time, and I guess the author is a good storyteller (and the guy who took over isn't bad either). but I regret that I didn't know about other much better books to use up the time.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by braddollar on Saturday November 27 2021, @07:11AM (13 children)
I've read all the books twice, and just reread Eye of the World in preparation for the show. Sure, there are some changes. Most of them are quite fine, and just speed up things that took forever before. If it were the word for word translation from book to screen that some people seem to want, it'd never be successful. By the time you get to Mat and Rand going to their third farm and mucking out their stables, or yet another night sleeping under a hedge bush, people would be completely checked out. It would be a dreadful bore if absolutely everything made it onto the screen.
1. I guess just because they didn't do an info dump that's considered it ignoring it? They have Moiraine teaching Egwene about channeling in a scene straight from the book. They eventually talk about men going mad from the power. They mention / show the danger of drawing too much power.
2. It really changes nothing at all to allow for the possibility that Egwene could be the dragon, or for them to say that there have been female false dragons. They aren't going to make her the dragon. They're just adding a mystery element to catch people's interest rather than hitting you over the head with who it is the way the book did.
3. Lan still takes out a bunch of trollocs? I'm really not sure what the issue here is. Does it really change anything that Moiraine tore some bricks from a building? That scene happens "off screen" in the books, who's to say she didn't take advantage of her surroundings in such a way?
4. Mat was always a scoundrel. This just tells you that quicker, without needing five plus books to detail it out. The whole first book he's like "lEtS gO sTeAl SoMe tReAsUrE".
5. Sure, the one sex scene changes some things between Rand and Egwene. I'd rather that than the awful stuff that was written about their relationship in the first book. Her just being overly moody, and getting upset at him for perceived slights. Him bumbling around and being awkward and trying to be her white knight.
6. This is a shame. Some characters are going to be cut though.
(unnumbered) Why does it matter that they added some people of color? It changes absolutely nothing relevant to the story, so who cares really? Re: the gay joke about Mat and Rand, again, so what? Is it not a reasonable question? If it were a guy and a girl and the inn keeper was like "ahh yeah gonna have a shag huh?" would you be bothered by it? Seems a perfectly reasonable question. They didn't beleaguer the point. She made the statement, he said no, they moved on.
Overall I think it's wonderfully done thus far. Episode 4 was great. Sanderson says episode 6 is 10/10. I think everybody has been really well cast. I'm disappointed Mat's been replaced for season 2 as I think this fellow has done a great job with the character so far. Nynaeve was brilliant in episode 4. Really sold the anger, as well as the haughtiness. Much more bearable in the show than in the books as well. Rand is pulling off the whiny idiot pretty well. Perrin's doing the "looks like he's dumb from the outside, but really isn't". Mat's being dodgy and skeptical. Egwene is.. whatever she is, she wasn't much of a presence in book 1 and it's felt that way in the show to me as well.
I'm excited for what's to come. I hope they get to the show all the way to the conclusion.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 27 2021, @02:01PM (2 children)
" Why does it matter that they added some people of color? It changes absolutely nothing relevant to the story, so who cares really?"
If it doesn't matter or change anything then why do it?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by HammeredGlass on Saturday November 27 2021, @11:27PM
Don't ask questions like that. It disturbs them.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 28 2021, @01:43AM
My guess is to provide wider demographic appeal, and obviously they've calculated that causing racists a little bit of grief is more than paid for by the rest of humanity NOT being deplorable cucks.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by janrinok on Saturday November 27 2021, @02:13PM (7 children)
If that is the only thing they had changed then I might be tempted to agree with you - while also agreeing with another commentator who asked 'why bother'.
But they have changed multiple things - all apparently in the name of diversity or inclusivity - resulting in the entire story setting being significantly changed to make the logic of the story incomprehensible. I would have no problem with a female Jane Bond, but if they also made her work for the FSB and be specifically tasked with combatting the poaching of wild wombats it wouldn't be the same story either, would it?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by braddollar on Saturday November 27 2021, @03:10PM (6 children)
What else changed in the name of diversity? The "any of them could be the dragon" 'mystery'? I highly doubt they are going to massively shift the story and make Rand not the dragon.
The line where they say "there have been many men and women claiming to be the dragon"? How does that even matter to the story if they claim there's been some female false dragons?
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 27 2021, @05:38PM (5 children)
They are whiny turds that hate change, and many of them are just plain old christian bigots. It is not complicated.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Saturday November 27 2021, @11:03PM (4 children)
Change is good. Overwriting other people's culture is not good. It wasn't good when America and Canada tried to do it to Indians, or when the Japanese empire did it to Korea, or when China does it to the Tibetans. It's not good that transgender athletes are forcing women out of the top ranks of women's sports. It's a broad and direct assault on their identity and their right to exist.
Subaltern stories are welcome and valuable. They should not be suppressed. But neither should they suppress other narratives, nor should they need to in order to exist. If they try anyway, it invites risk.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Sunday November 28 2021, @12:59AM (1 child)
this has been an issue for many decades - Disney with re-told fairy tales, through to enough re-boots of spiderman to make an addidas factory.
Apparently, creating your own story is too hard, so they just steal/re-appropriate others' stories ... so often, badly..
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Sunday November 28 2021, @02:34PM
Amen to the Spiderman reboots.
Thankfully there are still some bright spots out there. The Expanse has been good. Babylon 5 remains intact.
The recent film adaptation of Dune is OK, though its casting was uneven. Jason Momoa was mis-cast as Duncan Idaho and Timothée Chalamet is rather an imperfect Paul Atreides. Zendaya as Chani has the right look but insufficient gravitas to play the Fremen woman who is Paul's destiny. Oscar Isaac, though, did a good job as Duke Atreides and Stellan Skarsgard is always good. Doctor Yueh was surprisingly superior to the old Dune adaptation's.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 28 2021, @01:47AM (1 child)
Overwriting people's culture?
You do realize Jesus was a black man right? lolol christian morons, wadyagondu?
Happy Holidays you fookin troll
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Sunday November 28 2021, @02:40PM
It's amusing, unexpectedly so, to point out that makes you an anti-Christ [merriam-webster.com]. (It's much better than adopting the passive-aggressive construction of "--phobe," such as, "Christophobe.")
Begone, anti-Christ!
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Spamalope on Monday November 29 2021, @05:54AM (1 child)
Lan should start more like Aragorn was treated in the LOTR movies, (brooding/mysterious - except towards Moraine + exceptionally competent) then become gradually open up as he comes to know the other characters.
Mat - should have the sort of player/ladies man charisma that lets him talk his way out of trouble as well as (later) into women's beds - not just a screw up or thief, a scoundrel with likeability and some ability to talk himself out of situations - an anti-authority figure (or at least be someone growing into this with a teenagers general screwups nature on top)
Perrin - the wife arc they added feels forced, will be a liability if they get to the Faile arc and want to stick with the book version of that story. The change feels very sit-com cheesy.
The Dragon - they've skipped over the breaking prologue, and the way the Dark One tainted the male source to turn the world's champion first against his family then the world along with all other male channelers also wrecking the male/female union magic. If you've only seen the show the central to the story nature of that hasn't been told yet. (I don't disagree with skipping the prologue / trickling that story out over time) The male/female source being different in kind; the lost male & lost male/female combination magic and what that means is central to the unfolding story, especially later. The female dragon concept didn't bother me until I thought of the story implications. It's central, unless they reverse course and write themselves out of it since so much was lost in the breaking. I'm not sure what legit story motive they have for the change. As written, it's not a story missing strong female characters; women have been the visible and hidden power for this entire age up to this point... so, why change (if that's meant to have any import like is being inferred)?
Perrin, Moraine, Liandrin and Logain seem to be the best cast; Thom looks good so far. Nynaeve seems to be finding her voice. The others feel like season one characters who haven't found the character yet, though maybe that's partly directing?
EP4 had a different feel to it; my impression was at least a letter grade improvement to the story telling
(Score: 2) by Spamalope on Monday November 29 2021, @05:56AM
The Whitecloaks were well done, Valda did a great job of embodying a Spanish Inquisition vibe.