Television The Wheel of Time - BOOKS and TV show thread - SPOILERS ALLOWED

nimic said:
I wouldn't say Moiraine plays that big a role after her return. I was honestly a little bit disappointed.
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She essentially makes the peace between Rand and Egwene after the negotiations have failed, and then together with Nynaeve assists Rand in the last battle. So she finishes what she started, with mentoring/advising Rand.

I definitely would have wanted more of her in the last book though. She definitely should have had a last chat with Lan and Siuan.
 
nimic said:
I wouldn't say Moiraine plays that big a role after her return. I was honestly a little bit disappointed.
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I thought her making peace for lack of a better word between Rand and Egwene was a fitting end for her arc, I did too expect her to have a bigger role and the one she has could be passed off to Cadsuane if Rosamund doesn't want to come back for the ending seasons. It'd be a shame though. Shes one character that never quite got the end she deserved.
 
padr81 said:
I thought her making peace for lack of a better word between Rand and Egwene was a fitting end for her arc, I did too expect her to have a bigger role and the one she has could be passed off to Cadsuane if Rosamund doesn't want to come back for the ending seasons. It'd be a shame though. Shes one character that never quite got the end she deserved.
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She kinda did, right? Her life's mission was successfully achieved, she fall in love with Thom and went with him, and knowing her, most likely she deducted that Rand survived (Cadsuane did too).

Actually, I wouldn't be terribly disappointed if they merge her and Cadsuane in the show. They are both there to guide Rand, although of course, I like Moiraine much more.
 
Really awesome episode, the best one so far. Rosamund killing it again.

I love how they are playing this between Moiraine and Siuan. In fact, it is even more convincing than in the books. Them being lesbic is fine, they were after all when they were younger.

I don't know what is happening now with Mat though. I thought he gets divided from Rand far later, in book 6 if not later. And I remember him being in the eye of the world.

I assume that the party is gonna return to Tar Valon in the second season too. Egwene and Nynaeve still didn't do the test for the Accepted, and Siuan has still to meet Rand.
 
nimic said:
I heard that ep 7+8 were filmed much later due to covid, and that the actor was already out by then. Hence the slightly janky ending.
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Yup, seems so.

Also, Maigan is gonna be a damane, I think. I think that it was clearly foreshadowed that she is going to meet the Saenchan.
 
Revan said:
Yup, seems so.

Also, Maigan is gonna be a damane, I think. I think that it was clearly foreshadowed that she is going to meet the Saenchan.
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Yep, that seems likely when they're focusing on her so much. She also said she was heading west, so... yeah. Definitely feel like they're going to introduce the Seanchan next season, and then they're going to stick around in some capacity as opposed to disappearing for a while like in the books. For TV it just makes more sense that way.
 
Good episode, probably the best bar the actor escaping the show ending. I thought everything was well paced. Pacing has actually been much better the last 2 episode. Its really picked up from the first 2 episodes (which were pretty decent) 4,5 and 6 are all really good. Not sure how I'll rate it in the end but given the let downs with other nerdy shit lately (cowboy bebop and masters of the universe) this one has probably exceeded my expectations.

Rosamund is soo good. Siuan was cast brilliantly too, her intro was great. I think some non-book readers might be confused whether Moirane teleported as I dont think there has been any explanation on Tel'aran'rhiod.

100% with @Revan Maigan is getting the collar for sure and will likely be our introduction to damane. Also Moiraine doesn't half bend the rules with the oath on lies. When she gave Egwene such a round about answer when she asked if Rand and Mat made the city, I thought she was pushing it.
 
The actor who is playing Rand is the new Kit Harington. Why on Earth they have to cast the main character be so boring?
 
Revan said:
The actor who is playing Rand is the new Kit Harington. Why on Earth they have to cast the main character be so boring?
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Not read the books but had him nailed on as the dragon as soon as I saw him. :lol:

Who'd have guessed that the off-the-shelf bland, generic vanilla protagonist guy might turn out to be the main character... like in most other shows ever?
 
Revan said:
The actor who is playing Rand is the new Kit Harington. Why on Earth they have to cast the main character be so boring?
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I don't think we can blame the actor, he hasn't been given much yet. He showed good glimpses in I think the 2nd episode, when he stubbornly railed against Moiraine. Next episode they reveal the DR, so I suspect we'll get to see a lot more of Rand in the final 2 episodes.

Also, I bet next episode starts or ends with the Aiel War, with the snippets we saw in the trailer of Shaiel fighting an Illianer. We'll get Tam (who was second in command (?) of the Companions) finding her giving birth, maybe helping her. Probably Moiraine will tell the gang the story of Gitara's foretelling during the siege of Tar Valon during the episode, then it is revealed throughout. Rand's hair and all that.
 
V.O. said:
Not read the books but had him nailed on as the dragon as soon as I saw him. :lol:

Who'd have guessed that the off-the-shelf bland, generic vanilla protagonist guy might turn out to be the main character... like in most other shows ever?
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Rand is a bit different, given that he slowly descends into paranoid madness. They have to have picked an actor who can get there, that has to have been a consideration.
 
nimic said:
Rand is a bit different, given that he slowly descends into paranoid madness. They have to have picked an actor who can get there, that has to have been a consideration.
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Definitely sounds more intriguing than the character we've had for the first few episodes of the show at least. Hopefully the writers can pull that kind of character change off with a bit more care than the GOT lot did, and the lad has the range to pull it off.

Can't say I'm a massive fan of the show overall so far at all - I don't think there's been quite enough world building to properly sink your teeth into for being quite far into the season now (at least purely as a watcher of the show alone) among other issues, but willing to stick with it for a while to see how it develops.
 
V.O. said:
Not read the books but had him nailed on as the dragon as soon as I saw him. :lol:

Who'd have guessed that the off-the-shelf bland, generic vanilla protagonist guy might turn out to be the main character... like in most other shows ever?
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He starts as generic vanilla, but becomes a very complex character during the series of books.

I still found him boring though, so like that the show is following Moiraine. To be fair, LotR might have been more interesting if it followed Gandalf instead of Frodo/Aragorn.
 
@V.O. I just saw that you haven't read the books, this is not the best thread if you want to avoid spoilers. That's basically all Revan and I do, we argue about spoilers. :D

Edit: Also, if you're watching it on Prime Video, I'd check out the extras. Every episode has had a 2-3 minute animated short about some aspect or other of lore, and there are also short bits of text explaining some things. It's a massive series of massive books, so there's a lot of lore they couldn't get into the show clearly. At least not to begin with.
 
Revan said:
The actor who is playing Rand is the new Kit Harington. Why on Earth they have to cast the main character be so boring?
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I think the show are trying too hard to make everyone else look the dragon they've kinda sidelined rand and given away who the dragon is.
 
padr81 said:
I think the show are trying too hard to make everyone else look the dragon they've kinda sidelined rand and given away who the dragon is.
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Yup.

On the other hand, we barely see Rand in the third book (when he finally accepts and claims to be the Dragon reborn). Was a bit shocking to me, that the main character gets completely sidelines for an entire book. So it is kinda alright.

In any case, Moiraine > Rand, so I cannot complain.
 
nimic said:
@V.O. I just saw that you haven't read the books, this is not the best thread if you want to avoid spoilers. That's basically all Revan and I do, we argue about spoilers. :D

Edit: Also, if you're watching it on Prime Video, I'd check out the extras. Every episode has had a 2-3 minute animated short about some aspect or other of lore, and there are also short bits of text explaining some things. It's a massive series of massive books, so there's a lot of lore they couldn't get into the show clearly. At least not to begin with.
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Thanks for the warning, but I'm aware and in the thread at my own risk! I've never been one to care about spoilers at all and if anything, the little hints in here of where things are going and nods towards some of the depth from the books that might be given more attention later is allowing me to have a bit more patience with the show and give it a bit longer than I might otherwise have. I'll have a look at the Prime extras when I get a chance, cheers.

As far as first impressions from someone just diving into the show blind... The first few episodes suffered massively from just being so generic (there were whole scenes in the first two episodes where you could very easily have been forgiven for thinking you were watching a Fellowship of the Ring remake), and while I understand early on you have to be quite 'on the nose' and have characters who each know better spell things out to each other for the benefit of the audience, they've been pretty slow for now to add much meat to the bones.

When you've got what boils down to a 'chosen one' and a Dark One and so little beyond that to give any gravity to the supposed world-ending consequences of what's going on, it's a little difficult to get into.

LOTR gives you a Ringwraith and tells you it's the remnants of the spirit of an ancient king who has been consumed by the evil of a gift from the Deceiver preying upon of the greed of mankind thousands of years ago. Cool! - WOT (so far) gives you a Shade and uh, it looks evil and it has too many teeth, but that's it.

I think fantasy works best when you're quickly introduced to easily categorised concepts and places to get your bearings and buy into what's happening a little more - GOT for example with the map in the intro and quite rapidly feeding you information about the different Houses, their logos, their mottos, their general 'feel' etc. WOT felt like it had an opportunity to do some of that in the last couple of episodes with the different colours of Aes Sedai, which obviously hold significance, but you got a couple of throwaway lines about a couple of different types and that was your lot.
 
V.O. said:
Thanks for the warning, but I'm aware and in the thread at my own risk! I've never been one to care about spoilers at all and if anything, the little hints in here of where things are going and nods towards some of the depth from the books that might be given more attention later is allowing me to have a bit more patience with the show and give it a bit longer than I might otherwise have. I'll have a look at the Prime extras when I get a chance, cheers.

As far as first impressions from someone just diving into the show blind... The first few episodes suffered massively from just being so generic (there were whole scenes in the first two episodes where you could very easily have been forgiven for thinking you were watching a Fellowship of the Ring remake), and while I understand early on you have to be quite 'on the nose' and have characters who each know better spell things out to each other for the benefit of the audience, they've been pretty slow for now to add much meat to the bones.

When you've got what boils down to a 'chosen one' and a Dark One and so little beyond that to give any gravity to the supposed world-ending consequences of what's going on, it's a little difficult to get into.

LOTR gives you a Ringwraith and tells you it's the remnants of the spirit of an ancient king who has been consumed by the evil of a gift from the Deceiver preying upon of the greed of mankind thousands of years ago. Cool! - WOT (so far) gives you a Shade and uh, it looks evil and it has too many teeth, but that's it.

I think fantasy works best when you're quickly introduced to easily categorised concepts and places to get your bearings and buy into what's happening a little more - GOT for example with the map in the intro and quite rapidly feeding you information about the different Houses, their logos, their mottos, their general 'feel' etc. WOT felt like it had an opportunity to do some of that in the last couple of episodes with the different colours of Aes Sedai, which obviously hold significance, but you got a couple of throwaway lines about a couple of different types and that was your lot.
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I think the problem is that WoT is just huge. You have so many fractions: around 20 nations in the main continent, plus the Aiel (mentioned already a few times), the Saenchan (hinted this episode), a civilization that won't be seen till the end of the saga, the White Cloaks that you saw, several unaffiliated powers which are not really states, but could be very powerful (the Kin, the Windrunners), and then you have Aes Sedai with the 7 Ajahs, each one having a head (not known to anyone else outside of the Ajah) and three sitters. Then you have the politics within the Aes Sedai, that the more powerful in the power an Aes Sedai is, the more political power she has (both Siuan and Moiraine are in top 5). Then you have the equivalent of Aes Sedai from the civilizations outside of the continent (Aiel, Saenchan, Shara) with all the politics going there, etc etc. Then you have the Dark one minions, you have seen Trollocs and Fades, but there are many more, including the Forsaken which were already once mentioned.

The Fades definitely are not equivalent to Ringwraiths, they are far less powerful. The Forsaken on the other hand...

So, the world is just huge to be able to give a quick introduction. It is larger than both ASOIAF and LotR worlds.

And to be fair, in GoT it was done slowly too. In the first episodes, you only see the Baratheans, Starks, Daenerys and you know that the Queen is the daughter of some great Lord, but only near the end of the season, you realize how powerful is Tywin. Then you see Tyrells in season 2, the Dornishmen in season 4, the people of Free Cities in season 5 or so.

Saying that, the first season of GoT was much better than the first season of WoT. Though, that season is one of the best seasons in any TV show IMO. And it helped, by having more interesting source material, with WoT Season 1 being a copy of the Fellowship of the Ring. However, WoT diverges quickly after that and becomes something completely different to LotR and very interesting on its own.
 
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nimic said:
This is the spoilery thread, be careful. Maybe the thread should be renamed to make it clearer if people can't see the full title when they click the thread. Like "WoT Books . . . " or something.
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Yeah, thanks. I'll probably avoid this thread.
 
Revan said:
I think the problem is that WoT is just huge. You have so many fractions: around 20 nations in the main continent, plus the Aiel (mentioned already a few times), the Saenchan (hinted this episode), a civilization that won't be seen till the end of the saga, the White Cloaks that you saw, several unaffiliated powers which are not really states, but could be very powerful (the Kin, the Windrunners), and then you have Aes Sedai with the 7 Ajahs, each one having a head (not known to anyone else outside of the Ajah) and three sitters. Then you have the politics within the Aes Sedai, that the more powerful in the power an Aes Sedai is, the more political power she has (both Siuan and Moiraine are in top 5). Then you have the equivalent of Aes Sedai from the civilizations outside of the continent (Aiel, Saenchan, Shara) with all the politics going there, etc etc. Then you have the Dark one minions, you have seen Trollocs and Fades, but there are many more, including the Forsaken which were already once mentioned.

The Fades definitely are not equivalent to Ringwraiths, they are far less powerful. The Forsaken on the other hand...

So, the world is just huge to be able to give a quick introduction. It is larger than both ASOIAF and LotR worlds.

And to be fair, in GoT it was done slowly too. In the first episodes, you only see the Baratheans, Starks, Daenerys and you know that the Queen is the daughter of some great Lord, but only near the end of the season, you realize how powerful is Tywin. Then you see Tyrells in season 2, the Dornishmen in season 4, the people of Free Cities in season 5 or so.

Saying that, the first season of GoT was much better than the first season of WoT. Though, that season is one of the best seasons in any TV show IMO. And it helped, by having more interesting source material, with WoT Season 1 being a copy of the Fellowship of the Ring. However, WoT diverges quickly after that and becomes something completely different to LotR and very interesting on its own.
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For sure, Thrones was much more manageable because the landmass for the most part was far less populated (at least thats the feeling I get) and Westeros while 3k miles long apparently is only a few hundred miles wide, Randland is about 4k x 3k not including Seanchan and everything past the spine. You'd probably fit Westeros into just the early Randland map at least 6 times, without factoring in Seanchan (which itself is far bigger than other areas), Shara, the Wastes or the Blight.
 
Rand's characterization so far is poor. They had him standing up to Moiraine in the beginning but now he's gone all tame and erased the impact of that. They haven't given any hints of him channelling to harken back to after they do the reveal, it's just going to come out as a major Deus Ex Machina. And overall the character relationships outside of Moiraine's seem really shallow.

I very much dislike the fact they all went to Tar Valon. The whole point is that the best laid plans don't survive the Wheel's will, and Moiraine and the Aes Sedai have to learn to adapt to the chaos of the ta'veren and the Dragon rather than being able to direct things as they see fit.

Rosamund Pike is brilliant though. Every close up I see her facial expressions convey every ounce of the motivations and conflicts I know the character has from the full depth of the books. It's quite something. Since they're changing so much can we just have her as the Dragon instead? :smirk:

I think I'd like the show a lot more if it was a different story told in the WoT universe, I just don't think they're going to do the original story justice.
 
Akshay said:
They haven't given any hints of him channelling to harken back to after they do the reveal
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He knocked down a door immediately after someone said three men couldn't knock that door down, that was definitely a hint. I think he might have been healing Mat too, I think Moiraine mentioned that he should be dead already. There was also Logain laughing at him, though it was played off as either him laughing at Mat, or Mat imagining the entire thing.

They could definitely have done more, but there's no way Rand turning out to be the Dragon could be classified as Deus Ex Machina. Even without the hints, he's one of four people specifically mentioned as possibilities for being the Dragon.
 
Revan said:
Yup.

On the other hand, we barely see Rand in the third book (when he finally accepts and claims to be the Dragon reborn). Was a bit shocking to me, that the main character gets completely sidelines for an entire book. So it is kinda alright.

In any case, Moiraine > Rand, so I cannot complain.
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Book 3 was brilliant though, as it really opened up the scope of the series and by not focusing so strongly on Rands' POV it was able to show his impact and influence on a greater scale. It was a transformative book for the series.
 
Akshay said:
Rand's characterization so far is poor. They had him standing up to Moiraine in the beginning but now he's gone all tame and erased the impact of that. They haven't given any hints of him channelling to harken back to after they do the reveal, it's just going to come out as a major Deus Ex Machina. And overall the character relationships outside of Moiraine's seem really shallow.
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Yeah. Also, surprising that only its only Loial who has commented so far on how Rand looks different from the others and that he has those distinct Aiel features. I think more should have been made of that by others whom he encountered on the road.

Rosamund Pike is brilliant though. Every close up I see her facial expressions convey every ounce of the motivations and conflicts I know the character has from the full depth of the books. It's quite something. Since they're changing so much can we just have her as the Dragon instead? :smirk:
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Agreed about Pike though. She has been brilliant so far and will be a shame when the show looses here in couple of seasons.

I think I'd like the show a lot more if it was a different story told in the WoT universe, I just don't think they're going to do the original story justice.
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Ah... I forgot you are the original RJ wanker and no one can do the story justice apart from him :lol:
 
harshad said:
Yeah. Also, surprising that only its only Loial who has commented so far on how Rand looks different from the others and that he has those distinct Aiel features. I think more should have been made of that by others whom he encountered on the road
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I am not sure that works in the TV world with how diverse everywhere is. Why would red hair be remarked upon when everywhere they have been, including small isolated towns, are hugely diverse? Understandable why they have gone with this approach but it may make establishing different cultures later difficult.

Making the whitecloaks as cartoonishly villainous as they have is a misstep for me. They needed to dial that down rather than up. Some of that can be put down to not establishing how feared Aes Sedai are by the general population, and the weak work around the breaking.
 
nimic said:
He knocked down a door immediately after someone said three men couldn't knock that door down, that was definitely a hint. I think he might have been healing Mat too, I think Moiraine mentioned that he should be dead already. There was also Logain laughing at him, though it was played off as either him laughing at Mat, or Mat imagining the entire thing.

They could definitely have done more, but there's no way Rand turning out to be the Dragon could be classified as Deus Ex Machina. Even without the hints, he's one of four people specifically mentioned as possibilities for being the Dragon.
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Logain laughing was a nice touch, but they overplayed the camera focus on Mat. And Mat being alive could be attributed to his resilience, also. They've just been ham-fisted with overdoing the distraction away from Rand, where a little subtlety would have worked much better.

harshad said:
Ah... I forgot you are the original RJ wanker and no one can do the story justice apart from him :lol:
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Guilty as charged :lol:
 
padr81 said:
I think the show are trying too hard to make everyone else look the dragon they've kinda sidelined rand and given away who the dragon is.
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Ha! So I was right with my guess then.

I since had it spoiled simply from googling names so I could converse about the characters and their actors, which is why I’m in this thread. It was just a random little blurb giving it away so…I’m not googling anymore. Even for a map, which I still need.
 
Organic Potatoes said:
Ha! So I was right with my guess then.

I since had it spoiled simply from googling names so I could converse about the characters and their actors, which is why I’m in this thread. It was just a random little blurb giving it away so…I’m not googling anymore. Even for a map, which I still need.
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If you want a map see below. You should also be safe clicking on the map to get it larger if need as I've tried to link the map image only so it won't give any text explanation etc.
wheel_of_time___westland_map_by_joystikx_dbcj8ut-fullview.jpg
 
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