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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: 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.