That was a bit crap. The entire season has been very "Legend of the Seeker", except it's 8 episodes long and some of them barely involved Rand so who cares about any of them? For all I thought it was a bit naff, at least Bridget Regan and Craig Horner got a chance to let you like the characters.
Television The Wheel of Time - BOOKS and TV show thread - SPOILERS ALLOWED
- Thread starter Revan
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The second most powerful man who has ever lived outwitted by a woman he has shielded because he doesn't think to take the knife off her with the one power?
That whole thing was basically the last battle plot itself, I can't help but feel people are going to get there and go "well, didn't he do this last time and come to the same conclusion?".
Well, I would but the show won't see season 4.
that must be it.
As someone who hasn't read the books the episode was enjoyable to me. A lot of different threads that make me curious to see the next season. I think people are being way too pedantic, most people won't care about a lot of the complaints people mention and at the end of the day the success of the show is going to be based more on whether they get enough viewers who aren't book readers and that's not really dependent on the things book readers complain about.
We don't know he couldn't have taken the knife off her, the vibe I got was he didn't really give a feck and could have easily. He knew what was happening and she didn't, it was only last second Rand outwitted him not Moiraine. Ishy was always arrogant to the point of it costing him.
Ishmael was so arrogant he didn't even shield a raving mad LTT in the book prologue. His arrogance is a huge part of his downfall and his character.
Rand has the 2nd most screentime and 2nd most lines in the series so far... Only Moiraine has more, given the who is the Dragon plotline it makes sense.
Yeah, Ishy being both massively arrogant and relatively crazy is a huge part of his persona.
Also, he is not the most powerful man who ever lived. That is the Dragon Reborn, be it LLT, Rand or their previous iterations.
Also, he is not the most powerful man who ever lived. That is the Dragon Reborn, be it LLT, Rand or their previous iterations.
2nd most of an extremely wide cast with a small number of episodes. It's not a lot.
That's kind of the point, either you know he can and the whole knife thing is daft, or he can't and the character isn't "crazy", he's a moron.
?
That is the point, they didn't want to make Rand the focus and have everyone know he was the dragon. Aside from Tam and with them not being able to afford a 2nd city/Camelyn what exactly was there for him to do? In terms of the main overall plot, Rand gets the beginning, the rest of the book is a travelogue and we get to the eye of the world. With Camelyn cut there is literally the fade attack in Whitebridge with Mat, which we got with Thom. I don't see what else they could have given him.
The point is Ishmael is arrogant, if Moiraine had made a move he'd have stopped her in her tracks. He likes toying with people and fecking with them. Whats more dangerous Moiraine with a knife or an insane Dragon after killing everyone he loves? He treated LTT with a bigger lack of respect than he treated Moiraine, he just stood their laughing at an unshielded Dragon, the most powerful man in history, mocking him and making fun of him in the prologue. What he did with Moiraine was in character because he likes to toy with people. We all know he can take the knife but whats Moiraine to do? She has to try... if Rand chooses the dark.
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He was smiling right when Rand did his thing on him, so I don't think he was outwitted. I think he did lure Rand to the Eye, as we suspected, and that it would end with either Rand turning to the shadow, or breaking one of (?) the seals to the DO's prison. Hence the cuendillar at the end.
Also think Moiraine wasnt stilled, just had a shield tied off. But the death fake-outs are getting annoying. Nynaeve healing was fine, but Egwene is suddenly a healer? This is the only episode so far which really annoyed the book-reader in me. I think I'll get over it, but I also think stuff like the CGI needs to improve massively for season 2.
Which was a horrible narrative choice. There's a reason the books stay with Rand so much in the early series, because it sets the stakes for the story. We care about him as a character and then RJ introduces others around him, but the central pillar to caring about all those other characters is their relationship to Rand and the core plot. We had more character development in a few scenes with Thom for Rand than we did the entire rest of the series. They could have given him a proper paced arc and accepted that Perrin, Nynaeve, Mat etc. are characters that develop as the story goes on and stop feeding them screen time.
I mean, this would work if he didn't look visibly disturbed when she had the knife to his throat. I agree, laughing in her face at her audacity would be very Ishy. Acting like there was a credible chance she could stop him wasn't. It's pretty clear it was shot with the intention of being a viable threat.
I do believe Ishmael is on the same power ranking as Rand/LTT as is Rahvin. They are all ++1 according to Jordans charts, I believe only callandor and the fat man angreal make Rand stronger.
I also thought the LTT scene in the cold open was very toneless and dull. The world was on the brink by the time LTT decided to strike at the bore, there was no sense of urgency and desperation in that conversation that showed a man who saw himself with no other option, arguing with someone whose only plan had fallen apart already.
I thought last weeks was pretty cool, I know lots of people got angry that a pregnant woman danced around, but the maidens/aiel in general are already a bit over-the-top so why not steer into the skid with it. Everyone knows the outsiders who join late to the party are the try-hard's anyway.
I thought last weeks was pretty cool, I know lots of people got angry that a pregnant woman danced around, but the maidens/aiel in general are already a bit over-the-top so why not steer into the skid with it. Everyone knows the outsiders who join late to the party are the try-hard's anyway.
I guess we are looking for different things from it. They made it clear going in this was an ensemble thing with Moiraine as the lead, long before the series premiered Rafe said this. They even in the last episode had Fain play up the parts of the others again. I think thats where we differ, maybe I had a better idea what we were getting into but the show creators have been consistent in saying its not Rand and his friends, the show is an ensemble show.
I didn't get the disturbed vibe off him but I'll have to watch it again, I more got a "oh look at the balls on you vibe". But on 2nd watch I might feel different.
He is, but there are some contradictions with the text in those rankings (both explicit and implied). I think it's fair to say RJ's opinions on those things changed at numerous points.
Either way, Ishamael is about as strong in the power as it's possible to be, vastly more powerful than either Rand at that point or Moiraine and certainly powerful enough to channel a flow of air while he was doing whatever he was doing with Rand.
Yeah the LTT scene was a weird one for me, it felt like there was no war and he was just like I'm gonna seal him away for shits and giggles. It lacked any kind of focus (not to mention the Tamyrilan calling him "the dragon reborn".) I guess they are going to extend this out till Rand fights Ishy over Falme, maybe giving us dribs and drabs of LTT in the age of legends. This would make sense as it would keep the actor in the loop and familiar till Rands madness takes hold and he's there whispering in Rands ear. Its the only logical explanation I can find for not giving us the prologue.
See thats kinda my thing, he could channel the flow of air but he wanted to feck with Moiraines head, to me thats classic Ishmael. I could feck you up but I'll mentally torture you by making you think you are gonna kill this kid.
I was perfectly aware of what Judkins said and what he planned. I was also extremely sceptical about it from a story telling point of view for that reason. This isn't a 24 episode a season show, hell it's not even a 12-13 episode season like the Wire. They don't have the space to make this a true ensemble, it's why they botched the execution of it so badly. Saying you're going through with a flawed plan before you do it doesn't make it any less flawed when you do it and those problems arise.
Which is fine, if it was played that way rather than it being a genuine source of threat for him like it was.
Also the fact that LTT is the one that wears the ring of Tamyrilan, not Latra
the War of the Shadow is such an epic thing and that scene (if done correctly) could have been a really intense moment if it had been set up properly.I don't mind changes to the text, but the writing on the show has been really poor, which is a shame because I like most of the cast.
Thats very much dependent on a persons views going in to me. I went in expecting a solid fantasy show based on an ensemble that was based on but not accurate to the wheel of time and thats exactly what I got. While the last episode was very anti-climactic and came together poorly, especially Fal Dara I'd say it was a decent season on the whole. Enjoyable but not amazing. Being honest better than I expected as I fully expected some Netflix like bollix. But I honestly don't see the flaws the way you do, I see a show that moved too fast pacing wise but that has no choice.
They've been given 8 episodes per season for 8 seasons... so 64 episodes total to get the entire thing done. In hindsight the Steppin thing (which was good on its own merit) and lots of episode 6 do feel like time taken from the EF5 (or in particular Rand, Mat and Perrin) given the breakneck pacing before and after but really aside from Perrin and Elyas and maybe a little more on the dagger I don't see what they could have put in especially with focus on Rand. He literally spends most the book busking and just being Ta'veren. Once Camelyn was cut I don't see where they get the extra development for Rand from.
Which is fine, if it was played that way rather than it being a genuine source of threat for him like it was.
Also the fact that LTT is the one that wears the ring of Tamyrilan, not Latra
I don't mind changes to the text, but the writing on the show has been really poor, which is a shame because I like most of the cast.
I'd agree on some of the writing being poor, some is solid. Episode 8 was mainly poor.
Yeah, based on that book after Jordan’s death, sure. However, a not fully developed Rand bests both of them, so that book is full of shit.
Same book puts Cadsuane above Egwene and Elayne which is also nonsense considering that it was explicitly mentioned in the books that those two (after Nyn) are the strongest Aes Sedai in more than a thousand years.
You get that from Legend of the Seeker. You don't spend £80m for a "solid fantasy series". I expected some reasonable character development where major events are processed and dealt with, appropriate pacing that allows the story to be told in a coherent manner and concepts to be introduced with the appropriate gravitas. The TV show doesn't seem to understand the value of building a character by talking to others. Every episode seems to need 2 fresh new characters to waste time with only to never be seen again when that time and space could have been used to help develop the characters we're supposed to stay with for another 7-9 seasons. It assumes the worst of the audience.
Instead what we got was an extremely rushed village of the week show where major events are given no time to breath because there's very little time and what is is taken up by largely meaningless, largely invented nonsense. It's watchable, but it's not good . The Wheel of Time isn't Malazan Book of the Fallen, it's not unfilmable. It's certainly possible to adapt it into a much better TV show than it has been given the resources available.
But even then I did say second most powerful, so your original post was weird to begin with.
Thats true even Jordans notes had Cadsuane above Egwene and Elayne who never reaches her potential. I guess they were the notes RJ started with but changed as time went on. It is interesting only Nyneave is above Cadsuane from the Aes Sedai in those notes though.
Again I kind of agree but mostly disagree, for better or worse Amazon have given them 64 hours to cover 700 chapters... They don't have time to slow down without major cuts (which I feel we'll also get anyway). In an ideal world a great adaptation is possible but with more money, longer seasons and more seasons but with what Amazon are offering I feel the result is acceptable.
I think that's the thing though, you don't need more money £80m is plenty. Lots of the stuff that is missing is just people having conversations with each other and I don't think the choices they made with that time was very good either. Arbitrary limits on episode lengths and season lengths are part of the reason it's at best "meh" television, not an excuse for it.
If they do this with the LotR stuff then holy feck there's going to be some salt. It's almost worth seeing just for that, but if I was an author I'd be extremely reticent to hand over my work to Amazon to be distilled and reformed by a focus group into data derived optimal sized portions of light weight television after this. It's generic village of the week fantasy with a good budget, too many characters and a WoT theme to it. I also don't see it making the duration, I'd be amazed if it sees a season 5.
I don't think £80m is that much considering the amount of cgi that has to go into WoT. Using GoT as an example, the battle of the blackwater required an extra $2.5m alone and everytime got had to tackle something cgi related (children of the forest grenades, burning of the throne etc..) it looked probably worse than WoT. I just think time and budget are an excuse for what we're getting but where we differ is I see the show as a 6/10 probably a 7 without the final episode, I imagine you see it lower.
The meltdown from LotR will be strong, much stronger than anything we've seen for any other show if I had to guess.
If I had no emotional attachment to the source material I would still think it bang average and in danger of cancelling. Because I do I am beginning to despise it. Yes I know those statements are somewhat contradictory but Wot despite all its flaws has tons of amazing stuff in it, it needed editing, not this fan fiction toss. They needed to cut out the padding, bring a more focused telling of the core story, yet they are adding stuff that is inferior to the book material they are cutting. The whole Tarwins Gap sequence was a total clusterfeck,
Will contribute again after some consideration but immediate reaction is of dismay at how crap this show is.
Will contribute again after some consideration but immediate reaction is of dismay at how crap this show is.
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Yeah, I missed second.
I'd say it's a 5. It gets an extra point because I like the actors mostly. I didn't hate watching most of it because I like the genera, but my girlfriend who is pretty good at sitting with me through stuff like this even though it's not her usual cup of tea thought it was utter rubbish and I doubt I'll be able to drag her back for a second season.
Imagine if they'd spent the Tar Valon budget on Caemlyn instead. You wouldn't have an episode wasted on Lan and Steppin being sad and a lot of largely irrelevant tower dynamics that aren't all that important. You'd have had Rand meet Morgase and Elayne (and if you want to introduce turbulence into Rand and Egwene's romance, that's how you do it, not the Perrin shite), a bit of Elaida and a bit of Gareth Bryne who could have given weight to the sword Rand carried. Instead the wasted essentially two episodes on relationships (Steppin and Lan, Moiraine and Siuan) that don't really matter this early or are already established (Lan and Moiraine).
I think they did it for two reasons, firstly to try and maintain this "who is the dragon?" farce for a bit longer (spoilers, it's always the handsome white boy who gets a heart to heart with his dad in the first episode) and secondly, to introduce Moiraine and Siuan being lovers earlier into the show. Both at the expense of developing the main characters.
Camelyn instead of Tar Valon in hindsight would have been the better 1 city approach that I do agree with. Nothing really happened with Tar Valon to drive the plot bar half healing Mat and Siuan telling Moiraine to go to the EotW. I think maybe we could have had Moiraine still meet Siuan in a dream and get the much needed info and remove the fluff (they still could have had the lovers thing).
I also think they could have done it without losing the who is the Dragon if they wanted to keep it. I guess they had a choice to make and they chose White Tower politics and maybe showcasing Aes Sedai power and its waning influence but I can't disagree with your take here.
They could have went straight for Camelyn via waygate to Fal Dara with no issues. Pretty much everything that happened in TV could have happened there cept the first 10 minutes (Siuans backstory and the Logain scene) so for sure Camelyn would have been the better choice. We'd essentially be losing nothing and gaining a lot. Maybe they considered it and just couldn't afford Elaida, Bryne, Morgase and Elayne actors as well as the charcters we got. I think the reason for killing off just about everyone in Fal Dara was to keep the cast down.
The problem with having Caemlyn is that then you'd have to introduce Elayne, Elaida, Gawyn, Galad, Morgase and Bryne, or at least some of them. But you'd still probably need Siuan. It's already quite dense for show watchers, so that would be too much. Particularly for characters that you'll just see once or twice and then not again for a while. You don't want to have to recast someone again and again, like the Mountain and some others in GoT.
Thats my thinking too and what I was trying to get at with the end of my posts, from a narrative perspective it made sense, I'd imagine not from a budgetary one.
Siuan doesn't serve any purpose in season 1 other than to sex up Moiraine and then exile her. Both are neither remotely important to the plot at this point (in fact one is problematic to the plot depending on how they take it with her exile). She's not a factor in the first book either.
If Amazon are compromising on stuff like this to keep the cast down then the show really is in trouble. The scope gets bigger and bigger (which is part of the reason RJ slowed down from FoH onwards).
People are already complaining that it movee too quickly and threw too much stuff at them, adding four or five new characters just wouldn't work.
Brandon Sanderson kinda nailing why Mat and Rand came off worse off than the other characters in season 1. Quite interesting, this is before the finale, you can watch Brandon cringe at some of the finale if you let it play afterwards.
He elaborates that he couldn't offer feedback for 7 and 8 and basically says losing Matt led to "super crisis mode" with rewrites and messy narrative.
I don’t know if it’s The Witcher‘s sentimental hold on me and S2 being released recently or it’s this show’s own quality, but I’m souring on it a bit.
It feels like it’s about on par with Shadow and Bone on Netflix, at least in terms of my interest. I’ll probably watch it (actually I stopped watching that one), but I am not emotionally invested in it.
It feels like it’s about on par with Shadow and Bone on Netflix, at least in terms of my interest. I’ll probably watch it (actually I stopped watching that one), but I am not emotionally invested in it.
My wife felt the opposite, she couldn't get into Witcher S2 because of how much she loves TWOT.
I think its because its too quick pacing wise... its hard to maybe find a connection to characters when it doesn't slow down to give people time to breath. Its a fair criticism. The Witcher by comparison has really focused on the core 3, so much so they kinda did Triss and Eskel dirty to really make the audience connect with the real core 3. They also have time to slow down and give us a look into the mind of the characters. WoT so far at least hasn't really slowed enough for those moments and when it did it gave us only Moiraine for the most part.
Goddamn, no Green Man.