That was a great episode.
Television The Wheel of Time | Thread for the TV show - book nerds shoo
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Give your feedback after you finish this episode.
Best episode of the season for me.
The young actors have been really good, even Perrin.
Now it's taking shape. The last 3 episodes have been fantastic. Originally I thought the characters were locked into specific rigid roles and the actors weren't all that but it would seem there is wriggle room for most of them
No spoilers needed there I don't think. The start and end of the fighting woman and what happens to her legacy is obvious at the end. Hope that doesn't need spoilers
Loved the episode. Best Cold Open so far for me and probably best episode.
I thought the big reveal landed with much less impact on the character than it should, he shouldn't be so chilled with it. Opening was solid.
And, dickish comment(s) incoming, the actress playing Min is too old, should be around Nynaeve's age.
Machin shin was shit as well, from an horrifying force to a melodrama device, Two Riversdale.
It is not the new GOT, it is an ok show, 5 or 6 out of 10 in its best moments, significantly lower at other times, and needs a huge improvement in season 2 to retain an audience.
Why is every place they go so racially diverse? A big part of the books is trying to bring all the different cultures together to fight a common enemy, these cultures have significant differences to overcome, with their own distinct valuable character. Every population in the show looks to have been calculated to maximize representation, that is fake diversity to me, and it breaks immersion. If you are going to make the Borderlands(for example) distinctly Asian, commit to it, explore that culture in the show. Groups like the Tinkers should have huge diversity, they travel everywhere take in people where they go, same for the WhiteCloaks and the Aes Sedai, both pull in people from all across that world, the other cultures we encounter should be more distinct. The annoying thing is they don't have to force it like this, the story will naturally give you all the diversity you could ask for.
And why did they make Angelmar such a jack-ass, was it just to build Moriane up, give her a power moment? Lazy characterization with shitty writing, all too typical of this show.
And, dickish comment(s) incoming, the actress playing Min is too old, should be around Nynaeve's age.
Machin shin was shit as well, from an horrifying force to a melodrama device, Two Riversdale.
It is not the new GOT, it is an ok show, 5 or 6 out of 10 in its best moments, significantly lower at other times, and needs a huge improvement in season 2 to retain an audience.
Why is every place they go so racially diverse? A big part of the books is trying to bring all the different cultures together to fight a common enemy, these cultures have significant differences to overcome, with their own distinct valuable character. Every population in the show looks to have been calculated to maximize representation, that is fake diversity to me, and it breaks immersion. If you are going to make the Borderlands(for example) distinctly Asian, commit to it, explore that culture in the show. Groups like the Tinkers should have huge diversity, they travel everywhere take in people where they go, same for the WhiteCloaks and the Aes Sedai, both pull in people from all across that world, the other cultures we encounter should be more distinct. The annoying thing is they don't have to force it like this, the story will naturally give you all the diversity you could ask for.
And why did they make Angelmar such a jack-ass, was it just to build Moriane up, give her a power moment? Lazy characterization with shitty writing, all too typical of this show.
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Incredible choreography for the fight, and the backdrop was lush.
Not convinced by the Rand actor though.
Apparently this was the first time they have used a Bolt Robot to shoot an action scene on Television and it takes amazing levels of choreography because the robot moves that fast if it hit anybody it would kill them.
Hopefully they have been hiding his light under a bushel to deflect away from who the dragon was and now that the big reveal is out of the way he can put some more meat on the bones of the character.
The actress was a stunt woman, so I wouldn't necessarily expect the same level of choreography throughout the series. Hopefully the main characters all get a healthy dose of training, and then you get competent people to choreograph and film it.
This is a big thing for me too so far. I have seen people say it's really positive, but they clearly didn't read the books.
It literally doesn't matter. If that's a big thing for you, then you should probably not keep watching, because the adaptation is going to make you miserable anyway.
Why does it not matter?
It impacts world building for me, limits the scale, everywhere looks the same, there is no sense of discovery of something new, hey we just traveled through the ways to get to a place which is pretty much exactly the same as the place we just left.
It does literally matter. It was a very big thing in the books.
Guess i have to stop watching then, since some random person on the internet told me to.
It's not a very big thing in the books. A select few individuals are described in a particular way, and those have so far been cast to fit that look. The rest is very general, and our internal perceptions of them are no doubt influenced by real world cultures and our assumptions of how people "should" look.
There is a very clear design philosophy here, it just generally doesn't involve race. If you thought Shienar in the last episode looked pretty much exactly the same as Tar Valon which looked the same as Emond's Field, then I don't know what to tell you.
We should take this to the book thread, assuming you've read the books.
This is technically spoilery material, you should edit it. (And continue the discussion in the book thread if you want).
Because they lost the ability to travel along the ways or with Magic, and 3000 years of inter breeding of small isolated communities should leave distinct traits. It is another small way they could have shown the impact of the breaking, that it is a civilization recovering from an apocalyptic event.
Maybe it doesn't matter, but I just find it distracting and immersion breaking, though there are many other issues with the writing that are far worse in that respect.
Maybe it doesn't matter, but I just find it distracting and immersion breaking, though there are many other issues with the writing that are far worse in that respect.
You just quoted his spoiler, now you need to edit too.
Good shout, hopefully fixed.
Deleted the op, thought we were in the other thread, maybe best to take it there and delete from here.
I'd agree with this as well. I haven't read the books, but I do think the world building has been the weakest aspect of the show so far, and something a fantasy series really needs to get right.
While the casting choices are not really at the top of the list for why that hasn't worked for me so far, it definitely helps you buy into the world to be able to easily be able to associate people and the way they look to places. You can watch GOT and probably tell apart characters who are supposed to be Dornish or Wildling or Dothraki or whatever, even if they're all wearing the same clothes.
When you have your big melting pot city and you have the exact same mix of the way people look that you do in the little village that's been isolated for centuries you really lose a bit of the sense of characters going from one to the other being out of their element in a strange land. When everybody is different in every place, everybody ends up the same.
That's interesting because the extras who played northerners are also the extras who played dothraki and unsullied. What made them stand out was precisely how they were dressed etc. And I have to say as someone who hasn't read the books that I definitely didn't think all places were the same. There's other ways to distinguish things than by the way people look and in the grand scheme of things it's not really relevant to the story. I would say most people look at it that way because most people just want to be entertained they're not gonna pay attention to things like this.
So what's going on with 2 threads about this now?
I don't dare going into the other one, since i am only halfway through book 10.
Just watched episode 8. I'm usually shit at noticing when things get better, or how good certain actors are, i just watch things for entertainmen without thinking more about it.
I have to say that this episode felt like a few levels above all the other ones, and Rand was much better.
Another question to those who haven't read the books (no this isn't for the other thread), have what happens and how they feel when they are cut off from the source been explained at all?
I don't dare going into the other one, since i am only halfway through book 10.
Just watched episode 8. I'm usually shit at noticing when things get better, or how good certain actors are, i just watch things for entertainmen without thinking more about it.
I have to say that this episode felt like a few levels above all the other ones, and Rand was much better.
Another question to those who haven't read the books (no this isn't for the other thread), have what happens and how they feel when they are cut off from the source been explained at all?
Got better in the last few episodes but overall I thought it was an average season. Having not read the books, I was confused by what was going on in the first few episodes - they didn’t take the time to explain anything about the world, the lore or the individual characters & as such I didn’t really care for what was happening. Hopefully gets better next season.
Crap acting, some laughable dialogue and corny CGI but I kind of like it.
I don't really feel any connection to any of the characters that's my problem with it - I was into the story but I'm not sure now.
I will watch the next season as I'm a sucker for fantasy shows/films and I certainly don't dislike it but there just feels there is something missing.
Was this really a big budget? The bricks in the war scene looked like Prisoner Cell Block H to me and the effects when people channel really could be improved.
I will watch the next season as I'm a sucker for fantasy shows/films and I certainly don't dislike it but there just feels there is something missing.
Was this really a big budget? The bricks in the war scene looked like Prisoner Cell Block H to me and the effects when people channel really could be improved.
According to Brandon Sanderson (who wrote the last books) there were issues, due to COVID and the actor who played Mat, with the last 2 episodes. He said it was chaos. Still shocking there was such a big difference in quality between episode 7 and 8.
If I had to guess the lack of Mat was the reason for the love triangle scene in ep7. Ep8 would have been weak with him but maybe not as weak.
This is quite rubbish innit. The dialogue is way too weak for me and I find a lot of it to be soapy melodrama. I really wanted to like this as I love the books but it just isn't working for me.
Just got around to the last couple of episodes. I've had some problems with the show so far, but it had enough to be given a chance... but what a load of shite those two last episodes were. 
You can't just throw a huge CGI army on screen and have them attack a city we've seen for five minutes and been given no particular reason to care about and expect anybody to give a feck with no further build-up. It's never going to be the 'epic' battle they apparently wanted it to be. Never stood a chance.
Whenever you have magic in a show, surely you need to establish power levels, limitations, consequences for anything to mean anything. If four untrained numpties led by someone who was deemed not powerful enough to be a full Aes Sedai can just splatter an army of tens of thousands... why would any of the actual Aes Sedai ever be troubled by a threat that wasn't several orders of magnitude greater? Why were several of them overrun by a few blokes with the 'false dragon'?
And then, to cap it all... if somebody dies, it doesn't matter, you can just bring them straight back to life as long as you're sufficiently sad about it. Why should I give a single, solitary feck about anything bad that happens ever again? That's getting a "dead Leia flying through space like Mary Poppins" sized feck off from me, thanks.
If only they had somebody on the payroll for this thing who could have let them know about Brandon Sanderson's Laws of Magic.
You can't just throw a huge CGI army on screen and have them attack a city we've seen for five minutes and been given no particular reason to care about and expect anybody to give a feck with no further build-up. It's never going to be the 'epic' battle they apparently wanted it to be. Never stood a chance.
Whenever you have magic in a show, surely you need to establish power levels, limitations, consequences for anything to mean anything. If four untrained numpties led by someone who was deemed not powerful enough to be a full Aes Sedai can just splatter an army of tens of thousands... why would any of the actual Aes Sedai ever be troubled by a threat that wasn't several orders of magnitude greater? Why were several of them overrun by a few blokes with the 'false dragon'?
And then, to cap it all... if somebody dies, it doesn't matter, you can just bring them straight back to life as long as you're sufficiently sad about it. Why should I give a single, solitary feck about anything bad that happens ever again? That's getting a "dead Leia flying through space like Mary Poppins" sized feck off from me, thanks.
If only they had somebody on the payroll for this thing who could have let them know about Brandon Sanderson's Laws of Magic.
Maybe it won’t come as a surprise then that he had almost no input on the last 2 episodes. He was not given the scripts till after filming was done.Just got around to the last couple of episodes. I've had some problems with the show so far, but it had enough to be given a chance... but what a load of shite those two last episodes were.
You can't just throw a huge CGI army on screen and have them attack a city we've seen for five minutes and been given no particular reason to care about and expect anybody to give a feck with no further build-up. It's never going to be the 'epic' battle they apparently wanted it to be. Never stood a chance.
Whenever you have magic in a show, surely you need to establish power levels, limitations, consequences for anything to mean anything. If four untrained numpties led by someone who was deemed not powerful enough to be a full Aes Sedai can just splatter an army of tens of thousands... why would any of the actual Aes Sedai ever be troubled by a threat that wasn't several orders of magnitude greater? Why were several of them overrun by a few blokes with the 'false dragon'?
And then, to cap it all... if somebody dies, it doesn't matter, you can just bring them straight back to life as long as you're sufficiently sad about it. Why should I give a single, solitary feck about anything bad that happens ever again? That's getting a "dead Leia flying through space like Mary Poppins" sized feck off from me, thanks.
If only they had somebody on the payroll for this thing who could have let them know about Brandon Sanderson's Laws of Magic.
speaking of Sanderson’s laws of magic. I am listening to the lecture series he gave as part of the class he teaches at BYU. Really enjoying it and he just started the section on his laws!
I'm a huge Brandon Sanderson fan, but I may never have given him a chance if it weren't for Wheel of Time. I read Mistborn purely to see if this guy was up to the task of finishing Wheel of Time. Mistborn is good, and some of his stand-alone (so far) novels are good (Elantris, Warbreaker), but I've been a massive fan of the Stormlight Archive from the start. It's already surpassed A Song of Ice and Fire for me.
It is probably going to finish before ASoIaF too, despite Sanderson starting 14 years after GRRM and planning a ten-book series. The difference in writing pace is absolutely bonkers. The first book in Stormlight came out a year before A Dance With Dragons (the latest in A Song of Ice and Fire), and since then Sanderson released three more in the same series for a combined 3.5k pages, finished up Wheel of Time with two books, three more Mistborn books, three sci-fi novellas, like twenty various other short stories/novellas, seven young adult fantasy novels, four graphic novels and a few audio exclusives.
GRRM has written a handful of novellas or short stories in that time, but he's also 73 and still has two books to go.
For feck's sake, this song which was released after his last novel, parodying the fact that GRRM is so slow to write, is now ten years old, and the book still isn't out.
I may be ranting. I'll see myself out.
Agree, thats how I found Brandon too but mistborn was after the WoT for me. I always kinda shied away from him thinking his writing to be childish (with no foundation) till I read WoT. I loved Mistborn after WoT but honestly Stormlight is his crowning glory, the characters are just so good. Kaladin and Syl are probably my favourite relationship in fantasy history and Vin is probably my fave standalone character.
He'll def finish before George (who probably won't finish at all) because his approach to writing is very pre-planned and organised. Everything he does is so structured (which is why those lectures are so good.) and its why he doesn't mess up his own world (ie lemon trees in Bravos) or some of the stuff that happens in WoT.
I'd put Stormlight above AsoiF too and when its done probably above WoT.
Episode 4 27mins 40seconds. Thom tells Rand about his nephew.
Bumping this as I recently binged it
For a first season it was fun and probably enjoyable as a non book reader to binge this in two / three parts rather than once a week. Easier to take in especially if going forward it will be once a week viewing
Some clunky things which have probably been discussed to death already in this thread. But otherwise a lot of fun to watch
For a first season it was fun and probably enjoyable as a non book reader to binge this in two / three parts rather than once a week. Easier to take in especially if going forward it will be once a week viewing
Some clunky things which have probably been discussed to death already in this thread. But otherwise a lot of fun to watch
No, not ready for this abomination to return. Makes Rings of Power look like The Sopranos level quality in comparison.
I know this is going to sound outrageous but maybe you could, you know, not watch it?
No, not ready for this abomination to return. Makes Rings of Power look like The Sopranos level quality in comparison.