The Wheel of Time | Amazon Prime | Adaption of Robert Jordan's expansive fantasy epic

[4815162342]

I plowed through re-reading Book 1 the past few days and the switch from Camelyn to Tar Valon is one of those things where you can maybe try to justify it in terms of economization of plot/locations, but you just miss out on some really good stuff there.

 

Plus it requires some logic/plot contortions to make work and avoid story collapse

[Joyous Legion]

It’s a horrible idea imo in so many ways. EotW is basically winternight+baerlon+shadar logoth+caemlyn+blight, and we’ve skipped the two that introduce some of the most important characters to the work’s protagonist.

[Menor the Destroyer]

45 minutes ago, 4815162342 said:

I plowed through re-reading Book 1 the past few days and the switch from Camelyn to Tar Valon is one of those things where you can maybe try to justify it in terms of economization of plot/locations, but you just miss out on some really good stuff there.

 

Plus it requires some logic/plot contortions to make work and avoid story collapse

There was some good show-original stuff in Tar Valon, but there's no particular reason why most of it couldn't have been worked into S2. The progression from Baerlon-Caemlyn-Tar Valon kept that feeling of broadening scope that really hooked me in the first book. 

 

Also

Spoiler

I'm worried that Liandrin and Elaida have been merged. I think it's important for that plotline that Elaida not be Black Ajah, but it seems like they're trying to set up the Tower coup here with Liandrin as the ringleader. 

 

 

36 minutes ago, Product Driven Legion said:

It’s a horrible idea imo in so many ways. EotW is basically winternight+baerlon+shadar logoth+caemlyn+blight, and we’ve skipped the two that introduce some of the most important characters to the work’s protagonist.

Plus Fal Dara to be fair, which needs screentime for the Tarwin's Gap climax to carry weight. Though I have a feeling they may skip that part. Honestly if needing to economize budget/screentime I would have traded Baerlon for Fal Dara easily, as the important events in the latter could be worked into S2. 

Edited December 4, 2021 by Menor

[Elessar]

On 12/3/2021 at 4:56 AM, Liiviig 1998 said:

I can't believe I'm saying this but nynaeve is my best character in this series so far followed by mat. I've been putting this off but oh boy is rand just bland..

 

No love for Lan Mandragoran? He's MY favorite.

 

As far as i understand Rand is supposed to be the main protagonist. He has that typical Luke Skywalker problem of being a goody two-shoes with no special quirks or larger than life demeanor that people quickly find boring but i don't mind. Characters like that are supposed to be the audience surrogate. I'm sure he'll get some more interesting things to do as time goes on.

[Menor the Destroyer]

2 hours ago, Elessar said:

 

No love for Lan Mandragoran? He's MY favorite.

 

As far as i understand Rand is supposed to be the main protagonist. He has that typical Luke Skywalker problem of being a goody two-shoes with no special quirks or larger than life demeanor that people quickly find boring but i don't mind. Characters like that are supposed to be the audience surrogate. I'm sure he'll get some more interesting things to do as time goes on.

Rand gets a really great arc. It's just a long-term thing over the whole series. He has to start off somewhat like this for it to carry weight. Though one of his central conflicts in book 1 has been left out of the show (so far), which probably makes the "generic" feel of his character a lot worse. 

[cax16]

Never read the books but I’ve enjoyed this so far. 

[Liiviig 1998]

13 hours ago, Elessar said:

 

No love for Lan Mandragoran? He's MY favorite.

 

As far as i understand Rand is supposed to be the main protagonist. He has that typical Luke Skywalker problem of being a goody two-shoes with no special quirks or larger than life demeanor that people quickly find boring but i don't mind. Characters like that are supposed to be the audience surrogate. I'm sure he'll get some more interesting things to do as time goes on.

Can't believe i forgot him . He is two mat goes third.

 

Early chapters Winter night especially really establish rand ,his motivations and establishes  the central conflict regarding his character in this book.

[Menor the Destroyer]

Btw one minor change that seems pretty unnecessary and bugged me:

 

Spoiler

Rand really liked Jain Farstrider's stories on his own, not just because of Egwene (I actually don't remember if Egwene also liked them or not). Why take that little aspect of his character away . Sure it doesn't matter that much but feels totally unnecessary. 

 

Edited December 8, 2021 by Menor

[Menor the Destroyer]

Pretty good episode (though some of the praise I've seen for it seems over the top). I wish most of this stuff had been done last week. The last two episodes are gonna be crammed. Also Rand continues to be done dirty here. That said Moiraine and Siuan own this episode.  Best cold open the series has had so far. 

 

Also,

Spoiler

Guessing the ending was related to Barney Harris having to leave the show. Will probably be played off as lingering danger side effects. 

 

Also (implied) Seanchan being in the west, probably puts to bed the idea (which I disliked greatly) that they would combine the Tear battle with Falme. Season 2 looking to be more or less TGH in the broad skeleton, though like this season I suppose a great many changes will be made. 

 

Didn't like the changes to Waygates, or the decision to use the Oath Rod for Moiraine's exile. Plus wouldn't her describing Siuan so intimately seem kinda suspicious. 

 

Don't like the idea of the Eye being the DO's prison but am assuming this is a trick by Ishamael to lure them there. 

 

Edited December 10, 2021 by Menor

[Liiviig 1998]

Spoiler

The teamgetting together again was kind of bland but what did  I expect. Winter night was poor and episode 5 jumped multiple plotlines.

 

Saw the romance btn morraine and Sanche and the sexuality change coming from a mile away.

 

Morraine calling her Sanche while offering her loyalty through the Oath rod was weird and would only create suspicion. And they try to make it way too emotional where it gets forced yet we just found out about their relationship in this episode.

 

Personally this trope in modern entertainment just irks me. I know we don't need long arcs all the time but writers want to introduce characters then give massive emotional payoff within in a very short period of time which makes the character choice feel forced and contrived.

We didn't need tears and the slow mo of her leaving the hall. Her giving like one look at Sanche with a neat musical choice and ampt facial expression would have done the trick.

 

Didn't like the description of the eye of the world supposedly being where the dark one is bound.

 

Liandrin having a man kind of made me chuckle.

 

Last two episodes are going to be crammed.

 

The more I think about the waygates ,the more I didn't like it. It's way out in the open?

 

I know the actor playing mat cauthon left the show  but the way his departure was handled didn't quite work for me.

Mmmm more like 6.5 to 7/10 episode for me. Back to abit of form . Some dialogue felt weird at places but this was morraine's episode.

Loial though Great still feels like plot device .

Rand is just so bland and it's getting worse every episode.

Edited December 10, 2021 by Liiviig 1998

[Liiviig 1998]

2 hours ago, Menor said:

Pretty good episode (though some of the praise I've seen for it seems over the top). I wish most of this stuff had been

That always happens with fanbases.

WOT Subreddit was very positive on episode 5 yet IMO there are things in that episode that would piss of a book reader.

 

[Menor the Destroyer]

6 minutes ago, Liiviig 1998 said:

That always happens with fanbases.

WOT Subreddit was very positive on episode 5 yet IMO there are things in that episode that would piss of a book reader.

 

True, I thought episode 5 was meh, though in a way it actually had less things to annoy me as a book reader (every episode has had a few though), my main annoyance there was just spinning wheels in a season that's already so crammed. But from the praise that people were giving this one I thought it would be on par with the 4th at least, which I thought was quite well done. But I would place it more with the 3rd as a solid but not super exciting episode. 

 

I think the next episode will have more of a Rand focus. But it's so late in the season at this point. I don't get why he has been given so little to do. 

Edited December 10, 2021 by Menor

[Joyous Legion]

Ep was awful. Show is awful. I can definitely assure you it has plenty to piss off book readers, really badly handled start and as it doesn't seem to get better I am done unless s2 or 3 gets glowing praise from trusted sources.

[4815162342]

If the books didn't exist I'd consider this a pretty good episode. But the books do exist so a lot of the choices in this episode were off to me.

 

I still don't understand switching Tar Valon for Camelyn when we're barely in Tar Valon this season and much of the Aes Sedai stuff could have been delayed to early season 2, and there's no natural point to return to Camelyn now for a while.

 

While I understand the idea to reframe Moraine as the main character in principle, it's definitely caused the actual main character of the story (and primary viewpoint character the first two books) to be kind of a non entity

[Liiviig 1998]

Spoiler

What the fucking hell happened to the borderlands

 

Lord agelmar who had a good relationship with the aes sedai and always wanted help in holding back the blight in the books is now like nah we can handle it on our own and need no help?and his attitude towards morraine seemed so condensending .

 

The borderlands was a place of hardened men who held back the blight when no other parts of the world weren't willing to do so always wanted assistance when they could get it especially from the aes sedai. They were being overwhelmed at that point in the book and we got So much world building around shienar and the neighbouring borderland states. Yeah but they don't show anything of this at all .

 

We get lan's history in lazy exposition . The history and fall of malkier was great and it's fall was tragic. And once again it heavily boosted worbuilding through showing us the borderland culture.

 

All that has been thrown out .l know they can't adapt it all but man they literally fucking do nothing with it.

 

Also didn't like the way fall Dara looked tbh. It barely looks fortified like described in the books.

 

Wasn't there also a winter and we barely see the effects of the blight on the poeple and there way of living and now all of the sudden being close to the blight is OK and fine...

 

This whole Perrin rand egwene love traingle is bullshit . Of all changes this is what they decided to go with.Cmon.

 

Atleast rand is now dragon reborn.

 

Lan having sex with nynaeve? . A little to much out of character for lan and it undermines the Aes sedai ,warder bond.

 

 

 

5/10. This had it's moments but it was pretty bad.

 

This episode......🤦🏿‍♂️. Too many pointless changes that are honestly infuriating.

 

Loved the opening and the flashbacks .

 

Continue to like nynaeve and Lan but they kind of ruined it at the end.

 

The borderlands world building was utterly reaped to shreds.it was completely glossed over and it was infuriating. 

 

I hate what they did to lord agelmar and turned him into a proud asshole .

 

Ok is loial some convenience machine . where did he go after the ways?. This would be ample time to have with the emond fielders. He only appears when characters need to move from point A toB.

 

Honestly didn't like the casting of min and she doesn't look the role but I found her OK but will see how she fares as the series progresses.

 

Oh boy the conflict btn rand and Perrin in this episode is straight out of the CW. Nonsensical shit to create drama.

Yeah Mats a coward...sigh.

 

Egwene rand , Perrin and mat all took hits as characters. In the book there is so much chemistry btn them and fuck me this show has butchered it so badly this episode adding to the fact none of them has been sufficiently developed. What a shame.

 

Liked atleast they tried to decide whether going to the eye is worth the risk .

 

I hated ep5 more but in terms of adaptation this was the worst. What they have done to the borderlands lore and world building is just fucking atrocious.

 

Oh God what has happened to this fucking series. 

 

 

[Menor the Destroyer]

3/10, worst episode so far. Character assassination of Perrin, plus the rest of it wasn't that great either. Only good parts were Nynaeve/Lan stuff, and the scene that began the episode was probably my favorite of the series so far, but after that it just got worse and worse. 

Edited December 17, 2021 by Menor

[Joyous Legion]

Bailed when the bailing was good (ep 2),  no ragrets based on what I’m hearing here and elsewhere.

[Joyous Legion]

1 hour ago, Liiviig 1998 said:

Oh God what has happened to this fucking series. 

Nothing has happened per se. We had gigantic flashing neon warning signs from ep 1. Some people involved can talk okay PR in interviews, I’m sure some of them really care, but when it comes to whatever conglomeration of people and processes had final say there is obviously no real appreciation for the source material.

[4815162342]

I'm mixed on the episode. There's things I liked, things I did not like at all, and some things I liked in concept that good have been executed better.

 

The thing I'm saltiest about is the depiction of Min.

[Menor the Destroyer]

Just can't understand

Spoiler

Why the hell would they go this direction for Perrin with him being interested in Egwene. It's like the writers are actively trying to make him unlikeable. 

 

Min and Rand don't have any chemistry at all, yeah they don't know each other yet, but I have a hard time seeing how their romance will feel natural. Not a big fan of the performance either. If I remember correctly when Min and Rand met in book 1 there was a little bit of spark there, at least on Min's end. 

 

Lan and Nynaeve, which was one of the easy points where the show could improve from book 1, still feels quite rushed. 

 

And yeah Loial disappearing made no sense. Is he not going to go to the Eye? Frankly speaking, while his look is off, his character is coming off way better than any of the others, so the next episode may be rough without him. 

 

Edited December 17, 2021 by Menor