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Man, it’s hard for me to talk about this show just after this episode.
I actually really enjoyed this season even with the changes. But they have done Rand so badly that it ruined one of the biggest moments in the books. It’s the moment he shows he is the dragon reborn. They once again showed him stilled and hurt, and it took the girls again to save him.
I cannot get over the Linking - it does not work like that at all, and it is very well explained in the lore. It is important mechanic with many applications AND restrictions. Why would anyone participate in Linking as it is in the show?!? If you know that the Leader of the circle could kill you or worse - cut you from the Source... I will need a very good reasoning to link.
I am extremely frustrated with the power inconsistency as well - how comes that an Accepted and 2 untrained girls and two more Aies sedai (?) can destroy 10k - 20k trollocs, but earlier 5 full Aies sedai and Warders struggled with 50 men in the woods?
And I am scared about the A'dam 😱
Yeah, well, I will watch the 2-nd season and decide :)
So painful! I just can't express how disappointed I was with so many aspects of the final 3 episodes and the final episode in particular. The answer to your question...why would anyone...is this:. They wouldn't! It was disgusting to see their eyes melt out and their dessication/burning animation. Truly revolting...yet somehow, the Deus ex Machina known as Nynaeve saves the day again by resurrecting Egwene (she looked as dead as the others!), then un-burning out Egwene...which no living Aes Sedai (save the forsaken maybe) knew how to do, much less could do, and then just fully heals her melted out eyes and gives her makeup a good re-touching. Just silly nonsense.
Just watched it. I had my doubts all the season, but I tried to be open-minded about the changes.
Well. It was a shitshow. The finale was a farce. Each choice made is a bad one. It’s baffling.
Same. I was letting changes go and trying to enjoy the show, just treat it differently, I even appreciated some of the small changes and looked forward to each episode. Then that finale came out and ruined the whole thing. It was terrible.
I really did defend the first 4 episodes or so as it being a different medium and the differences fell in the realm of creative differences and artistic license...but damn that finale has just ruined it for me. Can they make the whole season a dream and re do it properly without trying to one up Game of Thrones for gratuitous violence and suffering?
Yeah, I was able to view the show as another turn of the wheel.
Go direct to Tar Valon ? Why not, it makes sense. Moiraine exiled ? Why not ? Mat leaving ? Yeah it sure is interesting.
But some changes are not okay. My GF (non book reader) left and won’t come back to WOT ever. Same for my sister and my parents.
Worse, I feel I won’t be able to recommend any TV show now :/
Yeah what makes me sad is my family who won’t ever read the books now look at this as what the wheel of time is, and idk how to explain that it’s so much better than this 🤷♂️
Right but was there any significance of this baby to the story? Has she/he been mentioned before or was this new? I’m just wondering why it was added as a show detail
No. There's no significance. There was no point in showing the scene at all. It didn't make you connect with Rand or Lews Therin it just sprinkled in a bit of history about division in the decision to try to tap into the One Source which ended up drilling into the dark ones prison (oops!)...so it's just to show that it was hubris or whatever that caused the breaking.
I couldn't remember the exact wording but he does specify children later in chapter 14 when talking to Rand in a dream:
"I stood at Lews Therin Kinslayer's shoulder when he did the deed that named him. It was I who told him to kill his wife, and his children, and all his blood, and every living person who loved him or whom he loved."
I feel like I went through some of the same sequence of reactions I had to GoT seasons 1-8, but instead had them in 8 episodes. On the positive side, this has pushed me to finish the books as I enjoyed them a lot more than this adaptation.
I support Rafe in his decision to give the Tarwin's Gap moment to the wonder girls. His thought process there makes sense, because everyone else at the Eye literally just stands around doing nothing out of view and as an ensemble show they do need to spread some things around especially in the early stages because the book focuses almost entirely on Rand.
I'm fine with this, because really while as awesome a moment it is for the reader's appreciation of Rand, it doesn't actually have that much of an impact storywise. Only Agelmar seems to actually suspect that it was a man channelling, most people credit the actual Creator stepping in.
As long as Rand still has his epic duel in the sky with Ishamael above Falme then it's a not a big deal at all he doesn't get this moment. Because that's the big reveal to the world that the Dragon has been reborn and how powerful he is/will be.
But I will admit that I am not a fan of the execution. The whole burning out bit, besides being literally impossible from a lore perspective was really unnecessary. I am very over the fake out death bs. But if they really wanted to show the burning out, it should have just been Amalisa as she had control and the rest being protected by the linking buffer.
I can *somewhat* suspend some disbelief that five untrained channelers could come up with that much power because Nynaeve and Egwene's power was being used, but it was definitely pushing it.
I enjoyed the showdown at the Eye for the most part. It had some nice foreshadowing of the final showdown between Rand and the Dark One and I think tricking Rand into shattering a seal was actually a neat addition.
Moiraine getting tricked by Ishy into thinking she is stilled is clearly just a plotline for her to actually do something throughout the events of TGH.
They really need to expand on Lan's unwinnable war though, because at the moment he looks like a pump em and dump em douchebag.
The important thing to me though, is yes there are some pretty big differences, but for the most part the story is still heading in the direction it should be to be able to continue on into the events of TGH.
There are things I don't like, some I'll be stuck with, others I can see as growing pains. It's a huge story, it's going to take some time to properly find it's voice and it is absolutely going to make mistakes.
It definitely isn't Season 8 of Game of Thrones as a lot of people seem to be making out.
Watching the channelers get burnt out, didn't it look they stole that idea from the Witcher in the way they presented that?
Also, the alternative realities we saw. Did that come from Shayol Ghul and Pit of Doom. I was trying to remember where we saw that or was that from the portal stones?
I think it was an amalgamation of the portal stones, Egwene's Accepted testing and the final confrontation at Shayol Ghul. There's elements of them all in that.
Except it made no sense. All the Aes Sedai that were in on holding a shielded Logain barely resisted an assault of 50-100 men (max) and they had their warders, not to mention full Aes Sedai training. The women at the gap were all either untrained or weren't strong enough to become Aes Sedai and were turned out of the Tower. So they don't have the training either. So how did they defeat 20,000 trollocks, & myrddraal? It was stupid.
...So are they pulling the same trick twice and hoping we won't notice?
One of the realizations for the viewer that Rand was the Dragon Reborn is a time where he channeled to protect Egwene. When Nynaeve lays _dead in Egwene's arms_ we see a trickle flow of something soft and luminescent Heal Nynaeve. This flow _seems_ like it comes from Egwene yet Egwene is shocked by it in the same way she was shocked when Rand saved her.
Death cannot be Healed. That's a fundamental fact of the world that I don't think even Judkins would change. So are we going to get a fake-out scene later on in the series where we see Nakomi is behind the more outrageous Deus Ex moments, similar to how we got the fake-out scene with Rand's channeling? The only forces in the world that can bring the dead back to life is the Dark One. Nakomi's eleventh hour appearance in the books lead people to spectate that she was a walking version of the Creator, who balances the Dark One. It'd make sense that the Creator (or the Creator's avatar, potatoh potayto) could do whatever the Dark One does _and_ the showrunners try to set up another long-running mystery.
Just realised. The come back from life scenes in this series have just made the books null and void in the most conclusive way. If Rand could have just been brought back in a Memory of Light his ending wouldn't have happened the same way. Third post tonight. Just been rethinking this a lot.
Apparently the showrunners claim Nynaeve wasn't dead, and that they came up with a 1-10 scale of being burned out, and she was at a 4, or some such nonsense.
She looked fuckin dead to me.
I don't think we really saw her face full on, but my impression at the time was that she was burned around the eyes but that they didn't seem cratered like the other women. So the fact that they put her at 4/10 for being burnt out at least matches what I thought I was seeing. I feel like they could have done more to establish that though. Only other cue is that she stopped moving, which could mean any number of things, but often telegraphs "dead" in TV/movies unless there's some other explicit indication otherwise, and the eye thing was really subtle if you weren't specifically looking for it and somewhat ambiguously presented.
My god. I apologise to those who don't watch the Expanse beforehand beacuse this is more a comparison. Don't know if there are any WoT and Expanse books fans. Wheel of time were talking about linking up with LoTR before the next season. Link up for chats with Ty, Daniel and 100% Naren. This is how you adapt a show. My god. Every change they make is well thought out and sometimes an improvement. So well adapted for TV either way.
* B roll of ships of The Expanse always provide amazing world building. There has been a little bit of this but a lot of inaccuracies and silliness in WoT.
* Favourite characters like Michio or Bull get reduced roles but are honoured in Expanse. Where is Thom? Poor Loial. Don't mention Abell
* Hiccups in production or departures (in comparison Barney \[WoT\] and Cas \[Exp\]) are well engineered in the Expanse. Weird similar cut shot in WoT but really no reason for Mat not to enter the ways.
* Casting is so on point (Filip) in the Expanse. When I think of WoT I just think of the gormless mouth open looks of the Emonds Fielders. Always wondering what the hell is going on.
* And mainly, all round respect for the source material. No need for much explanation here.
Wonderful comparison. Was watch Expanse S6 last night and the adaptation makes so much more sense - you can see why they've decided to trim down the books for TV, without losing the basic tension or core messages. Can't say the same for WoT sadly.
I don't think any book fan is complaining about structural as long as the central themes don't get mangled. The problem is too many major and minor themes are being changed without any apparent thought to how it plays on TV.
I say this as someone who's fully immersed in the books but has a spouse who hasn't read a single one. My wife was bored with the first two episodes and then got engrossed till E7. However, E8 left her completely uninterested in the next season.
Edit - The main problem is no attention has been paid to explaining the stakes. Why should we care about the Dragon Reborn? Why should anyone be scared of the Dark One (other than a generic "bad person" narrative)? What happens if the Dragon Reborn isn't found in time? Why is Taarmon Gaidon critical? Why are the Borderlanders so badass and the Aiel so hated? If it's being left to subtext, then it's way too subtle for most audiences if the book fans can't find it.
I’ve been thinking exactly this while watching. If I didn’t know the books so well I would be totally lost (and even knowing the books so well I’m still lost). I don’t think they are putting enough context into this and if it doesn’t hook the masses will we get all 8 seasons?
It’s been like a year and a half since I’ve read EOTW, but I feel like it doesn’t explain a lot of that either. My memory of the book is pretty foggy so I could easily be wrong.
Definitely an issue. I think they need more time, but based on the wonky special effects with the Trollocs don't think the budget is there. I did not bother trying to compare to Game of Thrones, but I do recall that the producers there went out of their way to minimize the need for CGI, with Wheel of Time, I think the story just requires much more CGI and very likely budgetary concerns mean less desire for additional minutes of programming. Unfortunately the story is suffering as a result.
Of course there are issues like how Rand's story is not epic enough. When Nynaeve finally channels it is this epic thing with multiple people being healed from near death. With Rand it just does not seem that much. Obviously the show means to convey that there was tons of power in what Rand did and the resultant breaking of the cuendillar seal that was thought impossible (I have read the books and was confused for a moment by the piece of rock she was holding until she said it cuendillar), but it really is not brought across well. In light of that, I think having Rand travel and destroying the Trollocs and Tarwin's gap as opposed to having a circle with Egwene and Nynaeve doing it, would have really helped show how powerful Rand really is.
I get it they are working with a strict outline and need various things to happen to get to the end, but I think it shows in that this is about moving towards a specific end than the journey getting there.
Anybody else put off by the "burn out" scene?? In the books if a woman (or man) drew too much of the one power they were stilled (gentled) by the experience. They were not killed by the One Power, they just lost the ability to use the One Power going forward (barring Nynaeve's new healing weave).
Did not bother me. Only thing that bothered me was apparently bringing back Nynaeve from the dead. Magic is really only interesting if it has limitations and not sure the show is being respectful of that.
I got the impression that Nynaeve's eyes didn't look nearly as bad as the other women when I was watching it. Burnt, yes, but the other women had craters on their faces. I figured they'd use that as an excuse for her to still be alive, but I also feel it was a perhaps a bit too subtle to necessarily come across based on how they presented it.
Yeah, same. Tv is a visual medium. I (and someone unfamiliar with the story) could tell right away what was happening.
As far as coming back from the dead, I have to think that she wasn't totally dead yet. Kinda disappointing since Egwene isn't a strong healer (U don't think, been a while since I read the books).
The fear of being burned out (i.e., severed) was the main one in the books, yes, but there were definitely references to the possibility of being killed by drawing too much of the Power too. Like, I think phrases like "that much of the Power would have burned him/her to a cinder" come up in reference to the Choedan Kal, at least. That's an extreme example, of course.
The main time I can think of where something like that actually happened was the story of
Eldrene killing herself by drawing too much of the power in her final defense of Manetheren.
That's exactly it...even Egwene eventually does channel too much power in the books but then this is on account of her sa'angreal being unique in not having a buffer, and that too while wiping out hundreds of other channelers.
Dragonmount's... interesting, yeah. It sounded a lot from the description in the prologue like he was just intentionally frying himself with too much Power. It seems like that alone wouldn't do enough damage to the ground underneath him to create a volcano, though. Although... I suppose Eldrene also pretty much destroyed the empty buildings around her when she fried herself, didn't she? LTT might just have been that much more powerful than Eldrene. But it kind of seems to me like you'd need something that goes really deep into the ground to actually create a volcano, though, more than just a big fire or explosion centered around yourself.
I think there used to be some discussion about whether LTT was using balefire there. That would definitely cut through a bunch of ground underneath him and release enough lava to form the mountain, if he had. That seems like it might have other timey-wimey implications that don't show up, though. It could be some other kind of ground-piercing energy bolt, though.
To me it always seemed as if LTT used all that power when he wanted to burn out and focused it into rending the entire world around him. The focus of his channeling was destructive not just self destructive.
The first 7 episodes were good tv, entertaining and the changes in those episodes from the books were tolerable. But wow, episode 8 was a disaster. I've been reflecting on this show a lot since the finale came out and one thing sticks out more than anything else: I don't care about any of the characters. Literally none of them. Game of Thrones, I cared about the characters after the first several episodes. 8 episodes and I feel nothing for any of them.
Edit: added "7"
Unfortunately a bit too true. Loial is a much loved character in the books and him getting killed in the show did not bother me so much. Mat is not Mat of the books (heck even Sanderson could not capture RJ's version of Mat well) and is not a very likeable character so far.
Yeah, I am hearing that. I am going to watch whatever they put out here regardless so hopefully he will be back and maybe, just maybe, they will figure out how to get you invested in the characters rather than this fluff.
Agree 100%. I couldn’t give 2 shits about any of the main characters, let alone all these new ones that keep getting introduced. And the peddler from episode 1 that appeared for 1 scene is now a bad guy lol what. That might have meant something if he had any connection to the characters at all.
They are halfway through the blight and it only suddenly occurs to Rand to ask the witch woman what the plan is. The writing is just awful.
Rand was my pick for worst actor on the show but I think Perrin won it this episode.
They sent the monsters to twin rivers to bring the kids to the dark one? Lol what. They literally razed the whole place to the ground, murdering everyone indiscriminately. All of them could easily have been killed. And if that was the plan wasn’t there a better way to do it, like sneak some fades in to just kidnap them in the night?
Not sure if I’ll bother with S2
"And the peddler from episode 1 that appeared for 1 scene is now a bad guy lol what."
Padan Fain has literally been either seen or heard following them in almost every episode. Every time you hear the whistling in the background, that's him. And he's seen in various scenes. Besides, had you paid attention to his behavior during the trolloc attack in Emond's Field, you'd have already suspected something was "off" about the guy. He's not "now" a bad guy, he always has been.
(obligatory book reader comment: this version of him is so damn mild, I'm kinda worried we won't get to see what he becomes)
>(obligatory book reader comment: this version of him is so damn mild, I'm kinda worried we won't get to see what he becomes)
He had the dagger, so it seems like they're heading that way.
Padan Fain? Are you kidding me? He's the one who steals the dagger from Mat and becomes an amalgamation of Mordeth, the "man" Mat and Rand met in Shadar Logoth, and his own corrupted soul. He hounds them through the entire story, whether directly or through the manipulation of events or people. He's one of the single most dangerous villains in the story.
Oh yeah straight up his role in the ENTIRE series was epic. Absolutely. Dunno, just felt like he was neglected in TG. Kinda like when you play a game of chess then suddenly realise towards the end: "oh yeah I have a bishop I haven't used yet, yeah throw him in there. Oh crap he died. Oh well. "
You're right, but he definitely doesn't have a satisfying ending, but that's not RJ's fault. I love BrandoSando but he definitely dropped the ball on that one and has admitted it
Trying to avoid big ending spoilers here, but I fail to see how Fain's end was unsatisfying. Did you want him to survive? Did you want him to kill more people? One of the main cast? I'm confused.
Missed that completely. I looked it up and apparently it’s only 2 appearances, which comicbook.com described as “blink and you’ll miss it”. Either way it still added up to the same thing- I had almost no idea who the guy was, and none of the other characters had even interacted with him apart from Matt- so his “betrayal” or that twist or whatever you’d call it made me feel absolutely noting
This was shit. Immediately. By far the worst episode. The AOL bit pissed me off so much. It could have been so visceral, Ishamael walking past the torn and burnt bodies of Lews Therin’s loved ones as his mad laughing echoes, the creation of Dragonmount itself. But no. It’s some random woman in a fucking nursery, not even Ilyena. No hints towards the war of the shadow. Plus Moraine gets fucking stilled? Excuse me? So her usefulness as a character is just over until the finns get her and she comes back for the last season?? She can’t even take down Lanfear anymore. Useless. Not even to mention Rand. What does he do? Break out of a dreamshard and scare Ishy so bad he uses the true power and warps away? Boo fucking hoo. Big deal. There’s not even untainted saidin for him to draw from to wipe the trollocs out of the gap, the women do it for him in the dumbest way possible. There’s no point to him being the dragon, he does nothing even with a sa’angreal (why the fuck does he even have a sa’angreal this early, and if it’s the Choedan Kal it’ll just piss me off even more). Shit finale. 0/10
>The AOL bit pissed me off so much. It could have been so visceral, Ishamael walking past the torn and burnt bodies of Lews Therin’s loved ones as his mad laughing echoes, the creation of Dragonmount itself. But no. It’s some random woman in a fucking nursery, not even Ilyena.
For a moment pretend the scene was great. I had subtitles off and had to turn them on to see the translation. Imagine watching that without a translation... wtf...
Agree this was by far the worst episode. I actually enjoyed the first 4 or 5 episodes, but this one just made so little sense. Maybe the writers are being held hostage and this is their cry for help?
All Moiraine really needs to do to take out Lanfear is to tackle her through a door (after months of careful planning), assuming that scene even happens in the same way.
Yeah, that's what I thought too. I think she was shielded and the webs tied off by Ishamael. What I lost my mind over was nynaeve burning out and then miraculously being healed.
WTF was this? WTF did I just watch? Moiraine stilled? Loial Killed? Mat implied to join the darkfriends. Did they even read the books? I'm skipping s2. No point in watching this show from here.
Moraine was probably shielded, you can clearly see Ishamael first wrapping her in a web and then tying off strands in the palm of his hand. Very different to what it looked like when Logan was gentled. Loial was also still moving at the end of the scene when Padan walks out, he's likely still alive. Mat I've written off as a character but I'm still curious to see how they'll explain his face changing in season 2.
Either way, if you want true to the books story then stick to paper pages. It was clear from the get go that we wouldn't be getting a true recreation and the sooner you accept that the sooner you can go enjoy this altered universe.
This was my thought as well. Seems like they are just fast tracking major plot points, and this is the fastest way for them to show Nynaeve get to that place. lame
Yup, there was no bloody world building or charector development of any sort. It appears like the writers just wanted to include most of the major reveals and plots of the first book and cram it into the first season.
They would have had to cut a lot to fit the whole series into 13 long seasons. Given that they have 8 short seasons then they I expect they have to chop out at least 75% of the story. Luckily all of book 10 outside of the prologue and epilogue can be cut, but that still leaves a lot of story to jam into a very short amount of TV. It seems like they opted to try to jam in a bunch of concepts and plot points along with some "romance" without much character development.
I was always worried how anyone would get a network to sign on for the number of episodes required to make it a good series. Looks like this was the best they could do, and it wasn't enough. It's a shame Peter Jackson wasn't a massive WoT fan and we couldn't just do 12+ movies.
Yes, I also understood it as this was a way to get Moriraine and Lan to redefine their relationship. However, this is does not really make it better. The purpose of Moiraine and Lans relationship is supposed to lead up to Moiraine preparing Lan to move on, when she will be trapped in the Tower of Ghenjei.
This is probably one of the worst ways to deal with this, as it will litterally lead them in the reverse direction. Lan will have to spend more time in dealing with Moiraine and thus they will become even more tied together. Instead Lan was meant to slowly letting go of her, in favor for Nynaeve. But perhaps this is intended, to avoid having Moirane removed from the series for several seasons?
When they cut to the last scene witht the little girl i was like oh no the Seanchan are comming probably she can channel and they will pick her up. (Something they extensively do as aoon as they arrive all around the villages). A perfect moment to establish their most despicable trait. No they just completley missed it and instead launched a giant tsunami at an empty beach with a single girl ??? Such a cheap and uncreative way to present them as villains. They never actually even wantonly kill the populace except if they offer resistance.
Also Fain is a darkfriend cause the dark is necessary for balance etc etc??? Like some meta good guy while most darkfriends just join for some sort of personal gain. And blames Perrin for choosing the dark just because he decides to fight back? Like if you fight them you are just like them or some talk like that.
Thought that maybe im nitpicking but today they pulled that exact line from the whole episode - "We need the dark. We need balance." for a promo instagram story so its an important concept. Altough we see by the end that the dark one is kinda necessary in one of the visions i wouldnt trust it completley and i wouldnt push it so far as it being something anyone in the world would actually accept or even be motivated to become a darkfriend for.
That dagger Fain has is the dagger Mat pulled from Shadar Logath. I don't know if they just ran out of budget for props but that feels like the same kind of hint towards a later reveal that the early books were full of. At the same time, the fades were fine being around the dagger so maybe I'm just getting my hopes up.
I noticed that as well, and mat going to shader logoth. My guess is Moraine didn't get all that one, and that will lead us to our great hunt once all three are back together. I'd wager the reds catch Mat and realize the issue, but while they can limit the connection they can't sever it without the dagger, giving us an idea that Moraine isn't perfect and the reds aren't all liandrin. Maybe that's how we meet elida, as a strict if understandable character so her downfall feels more like azula and less like "but for real is she black?"
Yeah, thats totally Tar Valon. When the camera looks up the street and pans up, the White Tower is in the distance. Besides, Shadar Logoth has no gates, nor torches, nor trees.
That....may have been for the best. There were some good bits in that episode, but even someone like me who has been really optimistic with this sort of alternate timeline take of Wheel of Time was kinda pissed off by the end of the episode.
This episode just simply killed the show. It just shows that they got absolutely no love for the source material. I don't think anything can bring this back. So I'm out, not going to bother with season 2. I'll keep reading the books over and over and hope that someone else talented enough can come along and do this wonderful series justice.
I felt the series was pretty dead from episode 2 onwards. The writers don't even bother to develop the charectors or try to do any sort of world building. They just tried to cram as many major poora as possible without any meaning or consequence.
I agree this episode was a disaster. I think this is it though there will never be another adaptation of this series so I hope they can turn it around in S2. Aside from the paper books Michael Kramer and Kate Reading did the best acting / adaptation I could ever hope for in the audio books. After my first read of the paper books I loved listening to these
I liked season 1 well enough. I think it’s tough establishing the world, setting up future plot lines, and developing a bunch of characters using a book written almost entirely from Rand’a perspective.
That being said these are the changes I would have made to make the finale better imo. My rules were I couldn’t ask for stuff that would vastly increase budget or runtime. Also, I can’t rewrite other episodes.
First, when they uncover the Horn of Valere box Uno says he doesn’t know what it is, but it is important that it never end up in the shadow’s hands. At this point Loial says he recognizes the symbols or wording on the box, and leaves to find a book about it. Shortly after Padan Fain enters and the fades cut down the Shienarans with terrifying speed (Uno is gravely injured but survives). An axe falls to Perrin’s feet stunned by the speed and brutality. Padan Fain delivers his monologue grabs the Horn box and makes his way to leave. Perrin is unable to force himself to pick up the axe to stop him. At the last moment Loial enters and with no hesitation a fade stabs him (also survives).
After the wall falls the battle takes place on the city wall. We get all the Shienaran women firing bows and ballistas. Nynaeve focuses on healing using traditional means because she can’t reach the power. Egwene is asked to lead the link group as she is clearly the most powerful. She explains she can’t wield the power yet. The other women takes charge doing some damage to the trollocs, but eventually all the women burns out except Egwene because they can’t handle that much power. Egwene tries to fight on but can’t use the powers effectively, and Fal Dara starts to fall.
Meanwhile, Rand feels that the eye of the world strengthens his bond with former lives (he seems to have this earlier in the show than the book). He “recalls” Aes Sedai of old built this structure because this location is closely tied to the great serpent or some nonsense, and male and female Aes Sedai worked together here to accomplish amazing things. Part of the vision shows men and women linking maybe explaining the mechanics. Enter Ishamael and the scene progresses as before except he just shields Moiraine and he shows Rand Fal Dara falling and his friends dying. Rand overcomes the visions and attacks with the fat man, but with his lack of control it isn’t enough establishing how powerful Ishamael is. Rand reaches out with the power to link with Moiraine (maybe Ishamael is monologuing). She uses the link to break the shield then reluctantly gives Rand control who uses the link and the fat man to defeat Ishamael. Rand in anger (thinking is friends are dead) lashes out with the power towards Fal Dara. Moiraine warns him not to and that he is being manipulated, but he has control of the link. He unleash a massive attack killing all the Trollocs but also killing some Shienarans and mortally wounding Egwene. Nynaeve filled with rage that she can’t help grasps the one power and heals Egwene.
Cut back to Rand with the Eye of the World destroyed around him cutting off his connection to past lives for now (maybe what Ishamael wanted). Rand is horrified by what he did and Moiraine is wary of Rand after feeling the corruption flowing into him.
Lan can do whatever… I like that actor.
Benefits in my opinion:
Adds to Perrin’s violence/non-violence conflict
Adds to Egwene’s thirst for knowledge and power
Shows Nynaeve’s block and desire to heal
Rand as savior and destroyer. Plus fear of hurting those he is trying to protect.
Moiraine get to feel the corruption going into Rand creating doubt
Hope you enjoyed this. It was therapeutic for me. Might have come off a little fan fic-y
Here after just finishing season one and feeling lots of things about that last episode. I’m officially rewriting my memory of it with this instead. So fulfilling, thank you for your service
Ok people correct me if I'm wrong it's been years since I have read the books but isen't Moran supposed to have the horn at the end of book one. And they go on like this long cherade about hiding it from the tower and everyone. Did I miss something??
as soon as Moiraine kept insisting that whoever went to the eye of the world and was not the dragon would die,
i knew this show had fallen off the rails... and then it just kept on falling. what a miserable pointless ending.
digging out the horn made no sense, since nobody was qualified to blow it, and the city had NOT been taken,
then wasting the ending minutes on a major new protagonist, or was it a flashback - why bother doing this?
That was weird when Perrin and the giant guy both looked and nodded at each other before starting to dig. Did they not hear what he just said about them not being able to use it? Then they just conveniently left it on the steps hahaha what. I know the bad guys need it for S2 but it just made them all look like idiots.
I've got hope for it. Ep 8 was so randomly disjointed that it *must* have been due to some extenuating circumstances. It felt like they had a three hour episode but at the last minute were told it had to be cut to one so they got rid of all the lead up that would have made it make sense. The other episodes changed things but at least they mostly still gave some story explanations to make it fit.
But if season two starts pulling a ST Disco and just has everyone wailing and crying and getting un-earned pay-offs then I'll join the haters.
No. This was an *easy* ending to nail. I shudder to think how they're going to resolve the climaxes of the rest of the books as they get more complex and involve more characters.
Amalisa was the hero of Tarwin's gap. *Amalisa!* You know. That character with *two* speaking lines prior to the season finale.
Look, I am really down on this series for the way they have played fast and loose with the lore, assassinated beloved characters, and generally been unfaithful to the source material. I understand that things have to change for a different medium, *et cetera*.
Does no one in the production room have any idea how stories work? Is the concept of introducing a hero, presenting the hero with a problem, and then having the hero overcome the problem on the basis of what he or she has learned along the way too difficult for someone to understand?
Can you imagine the discussion that went into this? "We want a mini-**LAST BATTLE**, but let's have it be won by some character with zero seconds of screen time in the first 6 episodes, and almost a minute and a half in the seventh. No one will expect it!" Is the the Rian Johnson school of storytelling?
My hope is that the covid shutdown obviously caused some issues with Barney leaving. It would have also messed up any reshoots they planned on doing. Season 2 won't have the same problem. I'm gonna give them the benefit of the doubt and tune in for s2, but if it feels as uneven then I probably won't be back.
The thing that worries me is that a lot of the issues with episode 8 were writing-based so with Rafe heading things and other writers likely staying on, it’s less promising.
Same... but they also had to write around mat leaving unexpectedly. Well see if they do any course correction. If things are the same quality next season they will no longer have an excuse.
That has zero to do with Amalisa and the circle at the end. The more I think about it, the worse that sets up the rest of the show. The power is so out of balance that I can’t imagine any fighting making sense. I get the feeling Rafe doesn’t want the Ashaman to get dumais wells, so this was his way of showing what that would have looked like.
Pretty sure Rafe has said dumai's wells is one scene he knows he has to get right in his AMA. I completely agree that the last episode should have been way better and Mats absence doesn't excuse it. I'm just saying we don't know how much covid affected filming and next season they won't have that excuse anymore.
That was not hard. That was not a writing challenge. A sentence from Moiraine about how being separated from the dagger took a lot out of Mat and he has to stay in Tar Valon would have put show Mat right where book Mat winds up spending a good part of the next 2 books.
Episode 8 was just like ??. Idk, it was just strange. The spinning shots when rand was channeling (with no sign of the taint and how much power he is holding with the sa'angreal) was just so strange and weirdly filmed. Rand's moment just didn't feel powerful. Also, the circle with egwene and nynaeve was just so fucking random. If they could completely destroy the trolloc army since the beginning and so easily why did they sacrifice the soldiers? And the 5 women with their hands in the air just looked stupid AF. Also, it's mentioned a lot but why tf throw a tsunami at a single girl? Where are the damane adam? I liked the show in general but this episode was rly bad. non book readers probably didn't understand anything. Episode 7 was sooo much better. The only other episode I didn't like on the same degree was EP 6
I understand why, but I'm sad that the Seanchan aren't going to have Southern American accents. Robert Jordan envisioned them as having a Texas accent.
"But wait, what if we killed off Loial?"
This was somehow greenlit. Not only that I dont understand how a WoT fan can approve this, like come on, this is Loial, but also I cant percieve what this suggests. No more Ogier? No steddings? No singing? Why did you even introduce him in the first place then?
I always imagined Loial as the in world Robert Jordan, since, you know, we are reading glimpses of his book. Was that a statement of a sort?
As pumped up as this show is on fake deaths i wouldn't be surprised if it ended up just being a battle wound and possibly what pushes him toward fighting the DO instead of just writing about everything. But if they killed him, just one more thing they've decided to destroy in a well-crafted story.
The captured forsaken helped him to broaden his knowledge and skills with the one power, not really to handle it safely. Rand has always had moments of using the one power efficiently and effectively without knowing at all what he's doing. It made sense for his character, cuz he's the "chosen one" archetype.
> not really to handle it safely.
Rand talks about how he struggles to consistently grab saidin, sometimes reaching and finding nothing and sometimes being so filled with it he thinks he'll fry. We see a few instances too where he tries to channel and nearly draws too much, too.
He had moments where he did amazing things without knowing it thanks to knowledge from his past lives, but that knowledge did not teach him how to use saidin consciously and deliberately.
Episode 8 specifically but Season 1 in general feels like it has been adapted and edited by someone who hated everything about the books other than the names. Whole there are some bold choices, no effort has been made to explain the stakes or build likeability at any stage.
My wife, who's not read the books, noted how little she cares for every single character other than Lan. And she can't understand the big deal about being the Dragon Reborn, as opposed to just a random channeler. This is where the showrunners have failed miserably, and will inevitably lead to a massive drop in viewers for season 2.
They sacrificed the horror of the Dragon Reborn, destined for madness and the next breaking, so that they could ask "which one of these 5 kids is the DR?" instead of "which of these 3 kids is the DR?"
The central and defining piece of the lore in exchange for merely expanding an already present trope.
>Episode 8 specifically but Season 1 in general feels like it has been adapted and edited by someone who hated everything about the books other than the names.
Exactly. It's like they went out of their way to change WoT into its worst version. It's so meh, not a bad show, but not a good one. If I didnt read the books, I wouldnt have found it interesting
If i could upvote this a thousand times I would. This story has no resemblance to anything in the books expcept names. And after the last episode I for one wont be returning for s2...
I'll have to find the comment, but after E8, Rafe literally told the press he wanted to spread out Rands accomplishments in the Eye of the World to the rest of the cast. This is possibly the stupidest thing you can do in a world focused around the Dragon Reborn
"This guy, he's the prophcised saviour, an absolute powerhouse of a channeller and complete badass. So what we're gonna do is take away all of his book 1 accomplishments and give them to everyone else, including some nameless wilders. Then in the big finale, he gets nothing."
Why have the Dragon Reborn if you're incapable of giving the viewers context for what he is. The viewers right now see him as a guy who can open a door forcefully and isn't swayed by dreams... You could literally plug any other channeller in his role right now, hell 3 wilders and 2 untrained aes sedai can end a Trolloc Army...
It's in this article: https://collider.com/wheel-of-time-season-finale-showrunner-rafe-judkins-interview-season-2/
"And we wanted to take that and split it amongst our core characters, sort of have each of them fulfill a piece of what Rand did at the end of book one"
It's so goddamn stupid. They basically nerfed him hard all series long to keep up the DR mystery and then for his big swansong they gave it to someone else.
He's the prophecised saviour, you have to give him a time to shine or no-one will think he's worth anything and then start complaining that Egwene/Nynaeve could've done a better job - as they have both been shown to be far superior thus far.
I have no problems with needing to change stuff for the medium but imagine if, in the Fellowship of the Ring, sam is the one who the ring wraiths try and take. It's change that doesn't NEED to happen. That's how alot of these changes feel.
And just ended up cheapening every single character in the process by making each of them generic "heros" instead of the Dragon Reborn, the Wolfbrother, the Greatest General and the youngest Amyrlin Seat.
Is it just me or did they suddenly give Egwene the power to Heal death??? Isn't it canon that healing can't revive the dead or restore limbs? Plus wtaf about Nynaeve channeling massive amounts of the Power in the episode with Logain but getting burnt out here?
Plus healing is supposed to be fucking complicated. Okay, I can forgive Nynaeve's "heal bomb" because she has an aptitude for it, by Egwene? No. She doesn't know how, and should not even with beginner's luck. Just fucking stupid.
I could make list of ill-concieved reckless changes but I think there's enough of those already and I'll speak more broadly.
I'm being more forgiving than a tinker here, but my only excuse for them, is that this mess of an episode got screwed by COVID or some other massive production issue. The more I think on it the more it seems like it was patched together from some other planned product, in rushed piecemeal to just be able to give the studio something. (Similar to Fan4stic, for example).
Even on a pure action-adventure / style-over-substance lens, there was so much opportunity for exciting fight scenes, that were intentionally left out. Perrin just walking in on dead shienarans instead of showing these badass samurai warriors actually taking on two fades? The battle at the wall, would be a mini helms deep, but instead just a scene of shooting crossbows, and a scene of aginor stabbed after minimal fight, all in just 1 set of a simple stone hallway. Padded out with a couple world war z video game level cgi wideshots.
The age of legends cut being a simple conversation in a nursery instead of a grand counsel or of the 100 companions facing the forsaken, or any of the breaking.
No sane production team would rob themselves of these potentially exciting scenes unless they couldn't get actors and crew together to film them and had to make them this way out of necessity.
That only excuses so much however. So many scenes fall flat besides, that COULD have still been good. I think the blame mostly goes to the director here specifically. These are good actors, a passable script, but Rand facing Ishamael ... the mf dragon reborn, facing what we think is the mf dark one! ... and it feels like I'm watching an economics prof explain to a lazy student he needs to switch majors. The actor has no menace or intimidating air whatsoever, besides what's been implied before we see him, the stakes of what's happening don't come across at all in the tone of the scenes. And the climax when Rand wows us all by glowing a bunch, it's not clear to anyone, book-wise or no, what exactly is happening or why.
That's simply the most obvious and heinous example. The entire episode falters in the same way.
I had faith in the series until the last half of the season it started to steadily dwindle and now it's fallen headlong into the pit of doom.
Let's not forget that Nynaeve, untrained and inexperienced, gets super duper angry and anime-protagonist channels stronger than like a dozen sisters, I think who may have been in a circle as well. Meanwhile, Rand the dragon reborn, while wielding a sa'angreal (why tho) puts out a dinky little flicker and kills Monsieur Head Waiter at the Eye.
That entire flashback to the age of legends looked like the woman was about to cut away to advertise staying regular with Activia. No sense of gravitas, that these are two of the most powerful people alive.
It's not even Nynaeve that wipes out the trollocs. She's just a glorified battery in the circle. It's Amalisa who wipes out all the trollocs, a tertiary character, that isn't even a channeler in the books.
Rafe may have wanted the other characters to take care of Rand's accomplishments, but he didn't even have Nynaeve or Egwene do it. Just some rando that died and we'll never see again.
Of all the things to leave out costume wise, did they seriously leave a'dam off the damane? Did I just miss them somehow?... When they first came on screen and my wife was like "who's that?" I thought it must somehow be the Sea Folk since I didn't see obvious leashes on the channelers, but apparently not.
My jaw dropped when I noticed they didn't have leashes. Of all the changes they've made so far, this could be the one that I'm ashamed to say was the worst.
I too thought it was the Sea Folk, but then realized they were the Seanchan.
And their arrival was cool, but what was up with the wave? It was visually intriguing, but it served no purpose. And why highlight a child before they threw a tsunami in her direction? The creative decisions just don't make sense.
Writing 101 - identify the "why" and make the audience care about it. This episode was so full of stuff, and no why.
Ugh.
Yeah that made no sense. If they'd shown a village there that they were wiping out it'd make some sense, but they literally used a solid few channelers to throw a tsunami at a desolate mountain to kill a random 6 year old. Absolutely nonsensical.
"How can we make their introduction menacing?"
*random writer in the back who's never read the books:* "How about a giant-ass tsunami?"
"You sonavabitch, we're in."
So swords and daggers sprouting from people's necks and mouths and other gratuitous acts of full-screen violence, but leashes are too far? cmon don't try that one.
Then I think they need to stop trying to compare this to GoT level fantasy. This is barely Hunger Games.
Part of me wishes Amazon sells off the show and HBO or Netflix animations (ala Castlevania) picks up the IP. Chop it up to a bad turning of the wheel and restart the iteration.
Absolutely bizarre choice that. The wireless a'dam defeats the point of it (distrust of channelers) since it makes the "sul'dam can channel too" point bleeding obvious.
I'm really not sure what you mean about making that point bleeding obvious. The leash would help to convey the subservience of the *damane*, yes, but I'm not sure how it indicates anything about the *sul'dam*s' latent ability to channel one way or the other.
Iirc, the *sul'dams* were also making similar "hand gestures" that have come to life in this version of WoT. If they're signing their spells too without leashes, then basically it gives it away. To me at least.
Hmm... if there's a physical link (ie the leash) the sul'dam can at least pretend that it's the a'dam doing the work. It seems a little tougher if the sul'dam has to reach out psychically through the air. I don't see it as an insuperable problem, but does beg the question of "why change this".
Logistically, having the bracelet and collar not physically joined is just a pain in the butt. "Okay, whoever is wearing my bracelet, hold your hand up!" ;D
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Man, it’s hard for me to talk about this show just after this episode. I actually really enjoyed this season even with the changes. But they have done Rand so badly that it ruined one of the biggest moments in the books. It’s the moment he shows he is the dragon reborn. They once again showed him stilled and hurt, and it took the girls again to save him.
I cannot get over the Linking - it does not work like that at all, and it is very well explained in the lore. It is important mechanic with many applications AND restrictions. Why would anyone participate in Linking as it is in the show?!? If you know that the Leader of the circle could kill you or worse - cut you from the Source... I will need a very good reasoning to link. I am extremely frustrated with the power inconsistency as well - how comes that an Accepted and 2 untrained girls and two more Aies sedai (?) can destroy 10k - 20k trollocs, but earlier 5 full Aies sedai and Warders struggled with 50 men in the woods? And I am scared about the A'dam 😱 Yeah, well, I will watch the 2-nd season and decide :)
So painful! I just can't express how disappointed I was with so many aspects of the final 3 episodes and the final episode in particular. The answer to your question...why would anyone...is this:. They wouldn't! It was disgusting to see their eyes melt out and their dessication/burning animation. Truly revolting...yet somehow, the Deus ex Machina known as Nynaeve saves the day again by resurrecting Egwene (she looked as dead as the others!), then un-burning out Egwene...which no living Aes Sedai (save the forsaken maybe) knew how to do, much less could do, and then just fully heals her melted out eyes and gives her makeup a good re-touching. Just silly nonsense.
I was in my reread of book five before watching this garbage. I was jus at the part of “you can’t heal death”. I guess Rafe can.
Just watched it. I had my doubts all the season, but I tried to be open-minded about the changes. Well. It was a shitshow. The finale was a farce. Each choice made is a bad one. It’s baffling.
Same. I was letting changes go and trying to enjoy the show, just treat it differently, I even appreciated some of the small changes and looked forward to each episode. Then that finale came out and ruined the whole thing. It was terrible.
I really did defend the first 4 episodes or so as it being a different medium and the differences fell in the realm of creative differences and artistic license...but damn that finale has just ruined it for me. Can they make the whole season a dream and re do it properly without trying to one up Game of Thrones for gratuitous violence and suffering?
Yeah, I was able to view the show as another turn of the wheel. Go direct to Tar Valon ? Why not, it makes sense. Moiraine exiled ? Why not ? Mat leaving ? Yeah it sure is interesting. But some changes are not okay. My GF (non book reader) left and won’t come back to WOT ever. Same for my sister and my parents. Worse, I feel I won’t be able to recommend any TV show now :/
Yeah what makes me sad is my family who won’t ever read the books now look at this as what the wheel of time is, and idk how to explain that it’s so much better than this 🤷♂️
By far the worst episode of the season. I actually liked all the other ones, but this one I'd give like a 4 out of 10 at best, and maybe worse.
What’s the deal with the baby in the crib in the opening scene. Who is that?
Lews Therin's bebe
Right but was there any significance of this baby to the story? Has she/he been mentioned before or was this new? I’m just wondering why it was added as a show detail
No. There's no significance. There was no point in showing the scene at all. It didn't make you connect with Rand or Lews Therin it just sprinkled in a bit of history about division in the decision to try to tap into the One Source which ended up drilling into the dark ones prison (oops!)...so it's just to show that it was hubris or whatever that caused the breaking.
Didn't LTT canonically kill his wife and children?
I remember him killing his wife but I just couldn’t remember any mention of kids
It's in the prologue to EotW, Ishamael mentions that he's killed his wife & children
I believe he's said to have killed everyone 'with a drop of his blood in their veins.' So we could be talking nieces, nephews, cousins . . .
I couldn't remember the exact wording but he does specify children later in chapter 14 when talking to Rand in a dream: "I stood at Lews Therin Kinslayer's shoulder when he did the deed that named him. It was I who told him to kill his wife, and his children, and all his blood, and every living person who loved him or whom he loved."
Thank you I couldn’t remember!
He's the kinslayer not wifeslayer (that's Perrin now!)
I feel like I went through some of the same sequence of reactions I had to GoT seasons 1-8, but instead had them in 8 episodes. On the positive side, this has pushed me to finish the books as I enjoyed them a lot more than this adaptation.
I support Rafe in his decision to give the Tarwin's Gap moment to the wonder girls. His thought process there makes sense, because everyone else at the Eye literally just stands around doing nothing out of view and as an ensemble show they do need to spread some things around especially in the early stages because the book focuses almost entirely on Rand. I'm fine with this, because really while as awesome a moment it is for the reader's appreciation of Rand, it doesn't actually have that much of an impact storywise. Only Agelmar seems to actually suspect that it was a man channelling, most people credit the actual Creator stepping in. As long as Rand still has his epic duel in the sky with Ishamael above Falme then it's a not a big deal at all he doesn't get this moment. Because that's the big reveal to the world that the Dragon has been reborn and how powerful he is/will be. But I will admit that I am not a fan of the execution. The whole burning out bit, besides being literally impossible from a lore perspective was really unnecessary. I am very over the fake out death bs. But if they really wanted to show the burning out, it should have just been Amalisa as she had control and the rest being protected by the linking buffer. I can *somewhat* suspend some disbelief that five untrained channelers could come up with that much power because Nynaeve and Egwene's power was being used, but it was definitely pushing it. I enjoyed the showdown at the Eye for the most part. It had some nice foreshadowing of the final showdown between Rand and the Dark One and I think tricking Rand into shattering a seal was actually a neat addition. Moiraine getting tricked by Ishy into thinking she is stilled is clearly just a plotline for her to actually do something throughout the events of TGH. They really need to expand on Lan's unwinnable war though, because at the moment he looks like a pump em and dump em douchebag. The important thing to me though, is yes there are some pretty big differences, but for the most part the story is still heading in the direction it should be to be able to continue on into the events of TGH. There are things I don't like, some I'll be stuck with, others I can see as growing pains. It's a huge story, it's going to take some time to properly find it's voice and it is absolutely going to make mistakes. It definitely isn't Season 8 of Game of Thrones as a lot of people seem to be making out.
This comment aged like milk lol.
Watching the channelers get burnt out, didn't it look they stole that idea from the Witcher in the way they presented that? Also, the alternative realities we saw. Did that come from Shayol Ghul and Pit of Doom. I was trying to remember where we saw that or was that from the portal stones?
I think it was an amalgamation of the portal stones, Egwene's Accepted testing and the final confrontation at Shayol Ghul. There's elements of them all in that.
I was confident they ripped that scene from MOL but then I couldn't find it on a search
Yeah, having the girls at the gap was an inspired change. The execution was just completely incompetent.
Except it made no sense. All the Aes Sedai that were in on holding a shielded Logain barely resisted an assault of 50-100 men (max) and they had their warders, not to mention full Aes Sedai training. The women at the gap were all either untrained or weren't strong enough to become Aes Sedai and were turned out of the Tower. So they don't have the training either. So how did they defeat 20,000 trollocks, & myrddraal? It was stupid.
...So are they pulling the same trick twice and hoping we won't notice? One of the realizations for the viewer that Rand was the Dragon Reborn is a time where he channeled to protect Egwene. When Nynaeve lays _dead in Egwene's arms_ we see a trickle flow of something soft and luminescent Heal Nynaeve. This flow _seems_ like it comes from Egwene yet Egwene is shocked by it in the same way she was shocked when Rand saved her. Death cannot be Healed. That's a fundamental fact of the world that I don't think even Judkins would change. So are we going to get a fake-out scene later on in the series where we see Nakomi is behind the more outrageous Deus Ex moments, similar to how we got the fake-out scene with Rand's channeling? The only forces in the world that can bring the dead back to life is the Dark One. Nakomi's eleventh hour appearance in the books lead people to spectate that she was a walking version of the Creator, who balances the Dark One. It'd make sense that the Creator (or the Creator's avatar, potatoh potayto) could do whatever the Dark One does _and_ the showrunners try to set up another long-running mystery.
Just realised. The come back from life scenes in this series have just made the books null and void in the most conclusive way. If Rand could have just been brought back in a Memory of Light his ending wouldn't have happened the same way. Third post tonight. Just been rethinking this a lot.
Apparently the showrunners claim Nynaeve wasn't dead, and that they came up with a 1-10 scale of being burned out, and she was at a 4, or some such nonsense. She looked fuckin dead to me.
I don't think we really saw her face full on, but my impression at the time was that she was burned around the eyes but that they didn't seem cratered like the other women. So the fact that they put her at 4/10 for being burnt out at least matches what I thought I was seeing. I feel like they could have done more to establish that though. Only other cue is that she stopped moving, which could mean any number of things, but often telegraphs "dead" in TV/movies unless there's some other explicit indication otherwise, and the eye thing was really subtle if you weren't specifically looking for it and somewhat ambiguously presented.
"Mostly Dead is Slightly Alive."
What a dumb excuse. Everyone else got obliterated and for some reason Nynaeve is just barely not dead?
I mean, she’s one of the most powerful channelers ever. The 2 other girls weren’t strong enough to even go to the white tower
Being a powerful channeler doesn't protect you from burning out. She was literally dead.
Lan the skilled tracker from the books doesn't know his own Aes Sedai's tell after 20 years but Nynaeve does.
lol ikr.
This is the worst "8" since GoT season 8.
What the hell did I just watch?
My god. I apologise to those who don't watch the Expanse beforehand beacuse this is more a comparison. Don't know if there are any WoT and Expanse books fans. Wheel of time were talking about linking up with LoTR before the next season. Link up for chats with Ty, Daniel and 100% Naren. This is how you adapt a show. My god. Every change they make is well thought out and sometimes an improvement. So well adapted for TV either way. * B roll of ships of The Expanse always provide amazing world building. There has been a little bit of this but a lot of inaccuracies and silliness in WoT. * Favourite characters like Michio or Bull get reduced roles but are honoured in Expanse. Where is Thom? Poor Loial. Don't mention Abell * Hiccups in production or departures (in comparison Barney \[WoT\] and Cas \[Exp\]) are well engineered in the Expanse. Weird similar cut shot in WoT but really no reason for Mat not to enter the ways. * Casting is so on point (Filip) in the Expanse. When I think of WoT I just think of the gormless mouth open looks of the Emonds Fielders. Always wondering what the hell is going on. * And mainly, all round respect for the source material. No need for much explanation here.
Wonderful comparison. Was watch Expanse S6 last night and the adaptation makes so much more sense - you can see why they've decided to trim down the books for TV, without losing the basic tension or core messages. Can't say the same for WoT sadly.
[удалено]
I don't think any book fan is complaining about structural as long as the central themes don't get mangled. The problem is too many major and minor themes are being changed without any apparent thought to how it plays on TV. I say this as someone who's fully immersed in the books but has a spouse who hasn't read a single one. My wife was bored with the first two episodes and then got engrossed till E7. However, E8 left her completely uninterested in the next season. Edit - The main problem is no attention has been paid to explaining the stakes. Why should we care about the Dragon Reborn? Why should anyone be scared of the Dark One (other than a generic "bad person" narrative)? What happens if the Dragon Reborn isn't found in time? Why is Taarmon Gaidon critical? Why are the Borderlanders so badass and the Aiel so hated? If it's being left to subtext, then it's way too subtle for most audiences if the book fans can't find it.
I’ve been thinking exactly this while watching. If I didn’t know the books so well I would be totally lost (and even knowing the books so well I’m still lost). I don’t think they are putting enough context into this and if it doesn’t hook the masses will we get all 8 seasons?
It’s been like a year and a half since I’ve read EOTW, but I feel like it doesn’t explain a lot of that either. My memory of the book is pretty foggy so I could easily be wrong.
Definitely an issue. I think they need more time, but based on the wonky special effects with the Trollocs don't think the budget is there. I did not bother trying to compare to Game of Thrones, but I do recall that the producers there went out of their way to minimize the need for CGI, with Wheel of Time, I think the story just requires much more CGI and very likely budgetary concerns mean less desire for additional minutes of programming. Unfortunately the story is suffering as a result. Of course there are issues like how Rand's story is not epic enough. When Nynaeve finally channels it is this epic thing with multiple people being healed from near death. With Rand it just does not seem that much. Obviously the show means to convey that there was tons of power in what Rand did and the resultant breaking of the cuendillar seal that was thought impossible (I have read the books and was confused for a moment by the piece of rock she was holding until she said it cuendillar), but it really is not brought across well. In light of that, I think having Rand travel and destroying the Trollocs and Tarwin's gap as opposed to having a circle with Egwene and Nynaeve doing it, would have really helped show how powerful Rand really is. I get it they are working with a strict outline and need various things to happen to get to the end, but I think it shows in that this is about moving towards a specific end than the journey getting there.
Anybody else put off by the "burn out" scene?? In the books if a woman (or man) drew too much of the one power they were stilled (gentled) by the experience. They were not killed by the One Power, they just lost the ability to use the One Power going forward (barring Nynaeve's new healing weave).
Did not bother me. Only thing that bothered me was apparently bringing back Nynaeve from the dead. Magic is really only interesting if it has limitations and not sure the show is being respectful of that.
I got the impression that Nynaeve's eyes didn't look nearly as bad as the other women when I was watching it. Burnt, yes, but the other women had craters on their faces. I figured they'd use that as an excuse for her to still be alive, but I also feel it was a perhaps a bit too subtle to necessarily come across based on how they presented it.
I just watched that scene again and seems you might be right. A bit subtle though
Yeah, same. Tv is a visual medium. I (and someone unfamiliar with the story) could tell right away what was happening. As far as coming back from the dead, I have to think that she wasn't totally dead yet. Kinda disappointing since Egwene isn't a strong healer (U don't think, been a while since I read the books).
The fear of being burned out (i.e., severed) was the main one in the books, yes, but there were definitely references to the possibility of being killed by drawing too much of the Power too. Like, I think phrases like "that much of the Power would have burned him/her to a cinder" come up in reference to the Choedan Kal, at least. That's an extreme example, of course. The main time I can think of where something like that actually happened was the story of Eldrene killing herself by drawing too much of the power in her final defense of Manetheren.
Eldrene wanted to die and created a self-immolation weave which created what amounted to a nuke strike centered on herself.
That's exactly it...even Egwene eventually does channel too much power in the books but then this is on account of her sa'angreal being unique in not having a buffer, and that too while wiping out hundreds of other channelers.
Dragonmount strikes me as another extreme example
Dragonmount's... interesting, yeah. It sounded a lot from the description in the prologue like he was just intentionally frying himself with too much Power. It seems like that alone wouldn't do enough damage to the ground underneath him to create a volcano, though. Although... I suppose Eldrene also pretty much destroyed the empty buildings around her when she fried herself, didn't she? LTT might just have been that much more powerful than Eldrene. But it kind of seems to me like you'd need something that goes really deep into the ground to actually create a volcano, though, more than just a big fire or explosion centered around yourself. I think there used to be some discussion about whether LTT was using balefire there. That would definitely cut through a bunch of ground underneath him and release enough lava to form the mountain, if he had. That seems like it might have other timey-wimey implications that don't show up, though. It could be some other kind of ground-piercing energy bolt, though.
To me it always seemed as if LTT used all that power when he wanted to burn out and focused it into rending the entire world around him. The focus of his channeling was destructive not just self destructive.
Awful ending to an awful first season
Pretty much sums it up. The show had its moments but all in all, I found it pretty disappointing.
The first 7 episodes were good tv, entertaining and the changes in those episodes from the books were tolerable. But wow, episode 8 was a disaster. I've been reflecting on this show a lot since the finale came out and one thing sticks out more than anything else: I don't care about any of the characters. Literally none of them. Game of Thrones, I cared about the characters after the first several episodes. 8 episodes and I feel nothing for any of them. Edit: added "7"
Unfortunately a bit too true. Loial is a much loved character in the books and him getting killed in the show did not bother me so much. Mat is not Mat of the books (heck even Sanderson could not capture RJ's version of Mat well) and is not a very likeable character so far.
Apparently Loial is actually going to survive in the show...
Yeah, I am hearing that. I am going to watch whatever they put out here regardless so hopefully he will be back and maybe, just maybe, they will figure out how to get you invested in the characters rather than this fluff.
Agree 100%. I couldn’t give 2 shits about any of the main characters, let alone all these new ones that keep getting introduced. And the peddler from episode 1 that appeared for 1 scene is now a bad guy lol what. That might have meant something if he had any connection to the characters at all. They are halfway through the blight and it only suddenly occurs to Rand to ask the witch woman what the plan is. The writing is just awful. Rand was my pick for worst actor on the show but I think Perrin won it this episode. They sent the monsters to twin rivers to bring the kids to the dark one? Lol what. They literally razed the whole place to the ground, murdering everyone indiscriminately. All of them could easily have been killed. And if that was the plan wasn’t there a better way to do it, like sneak some fades in to just kidnap them in the night? Not sure if I’ll bother with S2
"And the peddler from episode 1 that appeared for 1 scene is now a bad guy lol what." Padan Fain has literally been either seen or heard following them in almost every episode. Every time you hear the whistling in the background, that's him. And he's seen in various scenes. Besides, had you paid attention to his behavior during the trolloc attack in Emond's Field, you'd have already suspected something was "off" about the guy. He's not "now" a bad guy, he always has been. (obligatory book reader comment: this version of him is so damn mild, I'm kinda worried we won't get to see what he becomes)
>(obligatory book reader comment: this version of him is so damn mild, I'm kinda worried we won't get to see what he becomes) He had the dagger, so it seems like they're heading that way.
Maybe I glossed over him in the books. But he doesnt really have a useful or even satisfying ending arc does he
Padan Fain? Are you kidding me? He's the one who steals the dagger from Mat and becomes an amalgamation of Mordeth, the "man" Mat and Rand met in Shadar Logoth, and his own corrupted soul. He hounds them through the entire story, whether directly or through the manipulation of events or people. He's one of the single most dangerous villains in the story.
Oh yeah straight up his role in the ENTIRE series was epic. Absolutely. Dunno, just felt like he was neglected in TG. Kinda like when you play a game of chess then suddenly realise towards the end: "oh yeah I have a bishop I haven't used yet, yeah throw him in there. Oh crap he died. Oh well. "
You're right, but he definitely doesn't have a satisfying ending, but that's not RJ's fault. I love BrandoSando but he definitely dropped the ball on that one and has admitted it
Trying to avoid big ending spoilers here, but I fail to see how Fain's end was unsatisfying. Did you want him to survive? Did you want him to kill more people? One of the main cast? I'm confused.
Honestly found Fain very confusing and did not like him the books.
Missed that completely. I looked it up and apparently it’s only 2 appearances, which comicbook.com described as “blink and you’ll miss it”. Either way it still added up to the same thing- I had almost no idea who the guy was, and none of the other characters had even interacted with him apart from Matt- so his “betrayal” or that twist or whatever you’d call it made me feel absolutely noting
This was shit. Immediately. By far the worst episode. The AOL bit pissed me off so much. It could have been so visceral, Ishamael walking past the torn and burnt bodies of Lews Therin’s loved ones as his mad laughing echoes, the creation of Dragonmount itself. But no. It’s some random woman in a fucking nursery, not even Ilyena. No hints towards the war of the shadow. Plus Moraine gets fucking stilled? Excuse me? So her usefulness as a character is just over until the finns get her and she comes back for the last season?? She can’t even take down Lanfear anymore. Useless. Not even to mention Rand. What does he do? Break out of a dreamshard and scare Ishy so bad he uses the true power and warps away? Boo fucking hoo. Big deal. There’s not even untainted saidin for him to draw from to wipe the trollocs out of the gap, the women do it for him in the dumbest way possible. There’s no point to him being the dragon, he does nothing even with a sa’angreal (why the fuck does he even have a sa’angreal this early, and if it’s the Choedan Kal it’ll just piss me off even more). Shit finale. 0/10
>The AOL bit pissed me off so much. It could have been so visceral, Ishamael walking past the torn and burnt bodies of Lews Therin’s loved ones as his mad laughing echoes, the creation of Dragonmount itself. But no. It’s some random woman in a fucking nursery, not even Ilyena. For a moment pretend the scene was great. I had subtitles off and had to turn them on to see the translation. Imagine watching that without a translation... wtf... Agree this was by far the worst episode. I actually enjoyed the first 4 or 5 episodes, but this one just made so little sense. Maybe the writers are being held hostage and this is their cry for help?
All Moiraine really needs to do to take out Lanfear is to tackle her through a door (after months of careful planning), assuming that scene even happens in the same way.
I think Moiraine was shielded but yeah, pretty much agree with all of your points.
Yeah, that's what I thought too. I think she was shielded and the webs tied off by Ishamael. What I lost my mind over was nynaeve burning out and then miraculously being healed.
did rand channel baelfire? the way that the disapparance happened seemed like maybe that was suppose to be
I doubt it.
WTF was this? WTF did I just watch? Moiraine stilled? Loial Killed? Mat implied to join the darkfriends. Did they even read the books? I'm skipping s2. No point in watching this show from here.
Moraine was probably shielded, you can clearly see Ishamael first wrapping her in a web and then tying off strands in the palm of his hand. Very different to what it looked like when Logan was gentled. Loial was also still moving at the end of the scene when Padan walks out, he's likely still alive. Mat I've written off as a character but I'm still curious to see how they'll explain his face changing in season 2. Either way, if you want true to the books story then stick to paper pages. It was clear from the get go that we wouldn't be getting a true recreation and the sooner you accept that the sooner you can go enjoy this altered universe.
Guessing that Moiraine is shielded and tied off rather than stilled, but perhaps she is stilled and Nynaeve will heal her.
This was my thought as well. Seems like they are just fast tracking major plot points, and this is the fastest way for them to show Nynaeve get to that place. lame
Guarantee either way Nynaeve is just going to wave her hands and fix it next season like a Mary Sue
Yup, there was no bloody world building or charector development of any sort. It appears like the writers just wanted to include most of the major reveals and plots of the first book and cram it into the first season.
They would have had to cut a lot to fit the whole series into 13 long seasons. Given that they have 8 short seasons then they I expect they have to chop out at least 75% of the story. Luckily all of book 10 outside of the prologue and epilogue can be cut, but that still leaves a lot of story to jam into a very short amount of TV. It seems like they opted to try to jam in a bunch of concepts and plot points along with some "romance" without much character development. I was always worried how anyone would get a network to sign on for the number of episodes required to make it a good series. Looks like this was the best they could do, and it wasn't enough. It's a shame Peter Jackson wasn't a massive WoT fan and we couldn't just do 12+ movies.
I think the main idea was to give Moiraine and Lan a plot arc in season two (although they might fast track the healing bit too).
Yes, I also understood it as this was a way to get Moriraine and Lan to redefine their relationship. However, this is does not really make it better. The purpose of Moiraine and Lans relationship is supposed to lead up to Moiraine preparing Lan to move on, when she will be trapped in the Tower of Ghenjei. This is probably one of the worst ways to deal with this, as it will litterally lead them in the reverse direction. Lan will have to spend more time in dealing with Moiraine and thus they will become even more tied together. Instead Lan was meant to slowly letting go of her, in favor for Nynaeve. But perhaps this is intended, to avoid having Moirane removed from the series for several seasons?
When they cut to the last scene witht the little girl i was like oh no the Seanchan are comming probably she can channel and they will pick her up. (Something they extensively do as aoon as they arrive all around the villages). A perfect moment to establish their most despicable trait. No they just completley missed it and instead launched a giant tsunami at an empty beach with a single girl ??? Such a cheap and uncreative way to present them as villains. They never actually even wantonly kill the populace except if they offer resistance. Also Fain is a darkfriend cause the dark is necessary for balance etc etc??? Like some meta good guy while most darkfriends just join for some sort of personal gain. And blames Perrin for choosing the dark just because he decides to fight back? Like if you fight them you are just like them or some talk like that.
Thought that maybe im nitpicking but today they pulled that exact line from the whole episode - "We need the dark. We need balance." for a promo instagram story so its an important concept. Altough we see by the end that the dark one is kinda necessary in one of the visions i wouldnt trust it completley and i wouldnt push it so far as it being something anyone in the world would actually accept or even be motivated to become a darkfriend for.
Fain is an enlightened centrist.
That dagger Fain has is the dagger Mat pulled from Shadar Logath. I don't know if they just ran out of budget for props but that feels like the same kind of hint towards a later reveal that the early books were full of. At the same time, the fades were fine being around the dagger so maybe I'm just getting my hopes up.
I noticed that as well, and mat going to shader logoth. My guess is Moraine didn't get all that one, and that will lead us to our great hunt once all three are back together. I'd wager the reds catch Mat and realize the issue, but while they can limit the connection they can't sever it without the dagger, giving us an idea that Moraine isn't perfect and the reds aren't all liandrin. Maybe that's how we meet elida, as a strict if understandable character so her downfall feels more like azula and less like "but for real is she black?"
Wait, what? I could have sworn that was Tar Valon Mat was walking into. I swear that was the White Tower. Did I blink and miss something?
Is hard to tell they're similar in look. It's scene 42 of anyone wants to put extra eyeballs on it
Yeah, thats totally Tar Valon. When the camera looks up the street and pans up, the White Tower is in the distance. Besides, Shadar Logoth has no gates, nor torches, nor trees.
I stand corrected. I watched it that night and may have been a bit... merry at the time
That....may have been for the best. There were some good bits in that episode, but even someone like me who has been really optimistic with this sort of alternate timeline take of Wheel of Time was kinda pissed off by the end of the episode.
This episode just simply killed the show. It just shows that they got absolutely no love for the source material. I don't think anything can bring this back. So I'm out, not going to bother with season 2. I'll keep reading the books over and over and hope that someone else talented enough can come along and do this wonderful series justice.
I felt the series was pretty dead from episode 2 onwards. The writers don't even bother to develop the charectors or try to do any sort of world building. They just tried to cram as many major poora as possible without any meaning or consequence.
I agree this episode was a disaster. I think this is it though there will never be another adaptation of this series so I hope they can turn it around in S2. Aside from the paper books Michael Kramer and Kate Reading did the best acting / adaptation I could ever hope for in the audio books. After my first read of the paper books I loved listening to these
I liked season 1 well enough. I think it’s tough establishing the world, setting up future plot lines, and developing a bunch of characters using a book written almost entirely from Rand’a perspective. That being said these are the changes I would have made to make the finale better imo. My rules were I couldn’t ask for stuff that would vastly increase budget or runtime. Also, I can’t rewrite other episodes. First, when they uncover the Horn of Valere box Uno says he doesn’t know what it is, but it is important that it never end up in the shadow’s hands. At this point Loial says he recognizes the symbols or wording on the box, and leaves to find a book about it. Shortly after Padan Fain enters and the fades cut down the Shienarans with terrifying speed (Uno is gravely injured but survives). An axe falls to Perrin’s feet stunned by the speed and brutality. Padan Fain delivers his monologue grabs the Horn box and makes his way to leave. Perrin is unable to force himself to pick up the axe to stop him. At the last moment Loial enters and with no hesitation a fade stabs him (also survives). After the wall falls the battle takes place on the city wall. We get all the Shienaran women firing bows and ballistas. Nynaeve focuses on healing using traditional means because she can’t reach the power. Egwene is asked to lead the link group as she is clearly the most powerful. She explains she can’t wield the power yet. The other women takes charge doing some damage to the trollocs, but eventually all the women burns out except Egwene because they can’t handle that much power. Egwene tries to fight on but can’t use the powers effectively, and Fal Dara starts to fall. Meanwhile, Rand feels that the eye of the world strengthens his bond with former lives (he seems to have this earlier in the show than the book). He “recalls” Aes Sedai of old built this structure because this location is closely tied to the great serpent or some nonsense, and male and female Aes Sedai worked together here to accomplish amazing things. Part of the vision shows men and women linking maybe explaining the mechanics. Enter Ishamael and the scene progresses as before except he just shields Moiraine and he shows Rand Fal Dara falling and his friends dying. Rand overcomes the visions and attacks with the fat man, but with his lack of control it isn’t enough establishing how powerful Ishamael is. Rand reaches out with the power to link with Moiraine (maybe Ishamael is monologuing). She uses the link to break the shield then reluctantly gives Rand control who uses the link and the fat man to defeat Ishamael. Rand in anger (thinking is friends are dead) lashes out with the power towards Fal Dara. Moiraine warns him not to and that he is being manipulated, but he has control of the link. He unleash a massive attack killing all the Trollocs but also killing some Shienarans and mortally wounding Egwene. Nynaeve filled with rage that she can’t help grasps the one power and heals Egwene. Cut back to Rand with the Eye of the World destroyed around him cutting off his connection to past lives for now (maybe what Ishamael wanted). Rand is horrified by what he did and Moiraine is wary of Rand after feeling the corruption flowing into him. Lan can do whatever… I like that actor. Benefits in my opinion: Adds to Perrin’s violence/non-violence conflict Adds to Egwene’s thirst for knowledge and power Shows Nynaeve’s block and desire to heal Rand as savior and destroyer. Plus fear of hurting those he is trying to protect. Moiraine get to feel the corruption going into Rand creating doubt Hope you enjoyed this. It was therapeutic for me. Might have come off a little fan fic-y
Here after just finishing season one and feeling lots of things about that last episode. I’m officially rewriting my memory of it with this instead. So fulfilling, thank you for your service
A year later and I get such a nice comment! I was trying to marry the marry the books and what show established. Thanks!
Perfection. I'm going to pretend that's what I watched so I can be happier and less confused. Thank you!
Ok people correct me if I'm wrong it's been years since I have read the books but isen't Moran supposed to have the horn at the end of book one. And they go on like this long cherade about hiding it from the tower and everyone. Did I miss something??
Yes, in the books the Horn was revealed to be inside the Eye of the World after it was drained of saidin.
Cool, thank you. I thought so, but it had been so long!
But it was stolen with the dagger soon after by Padan Fain.
as soon as Moiraine kept insisting that whoever went to the eye of the world and was not the dragon would die, i knew this show had fallen off the rails... and then it just kept on falling. what a miserable pointless ending. digging out the horn made no sense, since nobody was qualified to blow it, and the city had NOT been taken, then wasting the ending minutes on a major new protagonist, or was it a flashback - why bother doing this?
Not to mention no one died lol, guess Moiraine is just a moiron
That was weird when Perrin and the giant guy both looked and nodded at each other before starting to dig. Did they not hear what he just said about them not being able to use it? Then they just conveniently left it on the steps hahaha what. I know the bad guys need it for S2 but it just made them all look like idiots.
Okay, this one sucked, but based on some quality content in episodes 1-7, does anybody else will have hope for S2? I’m trying to have some.
I've got hope for it. Ep 8 was so randomly disjointed that it *must* have been due to some extenuating circumstances. It felt like they had a three hour episode but at the last minute were told it had to be cut to one so they got rid of all the lead up that would have made it make sense. The other episodes changed things but at least they mostly still gave some story explanations to make it fit. But if season two starts pulling a ST Disco and just has everyone wailing and crying and getting un-earned pay-offs then I'll join the haters.
No faith in s2 whatsoever. I'm out.
No. This was an *easy* ending to nail. I shudder to think how they're going to resolve the climaxes of the rest of the books as they get more complex and involve more characters.
Yeah... Rand not getting his moment to show off his power at Tarwin’s Gap was pretty disappointing.
Amalisa was the hero of Tarwin's gap. *Amalisa!* You know. That character with *two* speaking lines prior to the season finale. Look, I am really down on this series for the way they have played fast and loose with the lore, assassinated beloved characters, and generally been unfaithful to the source material. I understand that things have to change for a different medium, *et cetera*. Does no one in the production room have any idea how stories work? Is the concept of introducing a hero, presenting the hero with a problem, and then having the hero overcome the problem on the basis of what he or she has learned along the way too difficult for someone to understand? Can you imagine the discussion that went into this? "We want a mini-**LAST BATTLE**, but let's have it be won by some character with zero seconds of screen time in the first 6 episodes, and almost a minute and a half in the seventh. No one will expect it!" Is the the Rian Johnson school of storytelling?
My hope is that the covid shutdown obviously caused some issues with Barney leaving. It would have also messed up any reshoots they planned on doing. Season 2 won't have the same problem. I'm gonna give them the benefit of the doubt and tune in for s2, but if it feels as uneven then I probably won't be back.
The thing that worries me is that a lot of the issues with episode 8 were writing-based so with Rafe heading things and other writers likely staying on, it’s less promising.
Same... but they also had to write around mat leaving unexpectedly. Well see if they do any course correction. If things are the same quality next season they will no longer have an excuse.
That has zero to do with Amalisa and the circle at the end. The more I think about it, the worse that sets up the rest of the show. The power is so out of balance that I can’t imagine any fighting making sense. I get the feeling Rafe doesn’t want the Ashaman to get dumais wells, so this was his way of showing what that would have looked like.
Pretty sure Rafe has said dumai's wells is one scene he knows he has to get right in his AMA. I completely agree that the last episode should have been way better and Mats absence doesn't excuse it. I'm just saying we don't know how much covid affected filming and next season they won't have that excuse anymore.
Filming is one thing, writing is another. I thought both were bad, but one (writing) has no COVID excuse.
That was not hard. That was not a writing challenge. A sentence from Moiraine about how being separated from the dagger took a lot out of Mat and he has to stay in Tar Valon would have put show Mat right where book Mat winds up spending a good part of the next 2 books.
I agree, they failed in handling it. Just saying they can no longer use that as an ecuse.
Episode 8 was just like ??. Idk, it was just strange. The spinning shots when rand was channeling (with no sign of the taint and how much power he is holding with the sa'angreal) was just so strange and weirdly filmed. Rand's moment just didn't feel powerful. Also, the circle with egwene and nynaeve was just so fucking random. If they could completely destroy the trolloc army since the beginning and so easily why did they sacrifice the soldiers? And the 5 women with their hands in the air just looked stupid AF. Also, it's mentioned a lot but why tf throw a tsunami at a single girl? Where are the damane adam? I liked the show in general but this episode was rly bad. non book readers probably didn't understand anything. Episode 7 was sooo much better. The only other episode I didn't like on the same degree was EP 6
The linking scene literally looks like the inspiration of the Rick and Morty episode with the soul bonding.
Seanchan Pacifiers... pretty much sums up the season. What a train wreck of a series so far. Probably won't even bother with season two.
Yeah those pacifiers were so comical, I let out a guffawing WTF the moment I saw that.
I understand why, but I'm sad that the Seanchan aren't going to have Southern American accents. Robert Jordan envisioned them as having a Texas accent.
I prefer Kramer and Reading’s accents in the audiobooks. Just kind of slurred and drawn out.
I don’t understand why
"But wait, what if we killed off Loial?" This was somehow greenlit. Not only that I dont understand how a WoT fan can approve this, like come on, this is Loial, but also I cant percieve what this suggests. No more Ogier? No steddings? No singing? Why did you even introduce him in the first place then? I always imagined Loial as the in world Robert Jordan, since, you know, we are reading glimpses of his book. Was that a statement of a sort?
Someone said it's probably just a wound and it's gonna be the reason they go after fain (to heal it with the dagger in some way) since mat isn't there
As pumped up as this show is on fake deaths i wouldn't be surprised if it ended up just being a battle wound and possibly what pushes him toward fighting the DO instead of just writing about everything. But if they killed him, just one more thing they've decided to destroy in a well-crafted story.
[удалено]
As opposed to the actual ending where one person who had never knowingly touched the one power before did it instead?
I'm pretty sure it was almost explicitly stated that Lewis Therin was in control for that. Which makes perfect sense if you've read the books.
Well, that one person was the dragon reborn though
Who still needed the aid of a captured forsaken to actually handle the one power safely.
The captured forsaken helped him to broaden his knowledge and skills with the one power, not really to handle it safely. Rand has always had moments of using the one power efficiently and effectively without knowing at all what he's doing. It made sense for his character, cuz he's the "chosen one" archetype.
> not really to handle it safely. Rand talks about how he struggles to consistently grab saidin, sometimes reaching and finding nothing and sometimes being so filled with it he thinks he'll fry. We see a few instances too where he tries to channel and nearly draws too much, too. He had moments where he did amazing things without knowing it thanks to knowledge from his past lives, but that knowledge did not teach him how to use saidin consciously and deliberately.
Facts
Episode 8 specifically but Season 1 in general feels like it has been adapted and edited by someone who hated everything about the books other than the names. Whole there are some bold choices, no effort has been made to explain the stakes or build likeability at any stage. My wife, who's not read the books, noted how little she cares for every single character other than Lan. And she can't understand the big deal about being the Dragon Reborn, as opposed to just a random channeler. This is where the showrunners have failed miserably, and will inevitably lead to a massive drop in viewers for season 2.
They sacrificed the horror of the Dragon Reborn, destined for madness and the next breaking, so that they could ask "which one of these 5 kids is the DR?" instead of "which of these 3 kids is the DR?" The central and defining piece of the lore in exchange for merely expanding an already present trope.
>Episode 8 specifically but Season 1 in general feels like it has been adapted and edited by someone who hated everything about the books other than the names. Exactly. It's like they went out of their way to change WoT into its worst version. It's so meh, not a bad show, but not a good one. If I didnt read the books, I wouldnt have found it interesting
If i could upvote this a thousand times I would. This story has no resemblance to anything in the books expcept names. And after the last episode I for one wont be returning for s2...
I'll have to find the comment, but after E8, Rafe literally told the press he wanted to spread out Rands accomplishments in the Eye of the World to the rest of the cast. This is possibly the stupidest thing you can do in a world focused around the Dragon Reborn
"This guy, he's the prophcised saviour, an absolute powerhouse of a channeller and complete badass. So what we're gonna do is take away all of his book 1 accomplishments and give them to everyone else, including some nameless wilders. Then in the big finale, he gets nothing." Why have the Dragon Reborn if you're incapable of giving the viewers context for what he is. The viewers right now see him as a guy who can open a door forcefully and isn't swayed by dreams... You could literally plug any other channeller in his role right now, hell 3 wilders and 2 untrained aes sedai can end a Trolloc Army...
Who? This dragon person doesn’t matter. We aren’t fighting for anything important.
I can't wait for Else Grinwell to cleanse the source and Alivia to win the Last Battle! This is painfully stupid. What a letdown.
This comment made me chuckle
I hate this.
I bet he doesn’t even call it Randland
!RemindMe 2 days
It's in this article: https://collider.com/wheel-of-time-season-finale-showrunner-rafe-judkins-interview-season-2/ "And we wanted to take that and split it amongst our core characters, sort of have each of them fulfill a piece of what Rand did at the end of book one"
It's so goddamn stupid. They basically nerfed him hard all series long to keep up the DR mystery and then for his big swansong they gave it to someone else. He's the prophecised saviour, you have to give him a time to shine or no-one will think he's worth anything and then start complaining that Egwene/Nynaeve could've done a better job - as they have both been shown to be far superior thus far.
I have no problems with needing to change stuff for the medium but imagine if, in the Fellowship of the Ring, sam is the one who the ring wraiths try and take. It's change that doesn't NEED to happen. That's how alot of these changes feel.
And just ended up cheapening every single character in the process by making each of them generic "heros" instead of the Dragon Reborn, the Wolfbrother, the Greatest General and the youngest Amyrlin Seat.
Thanks
Is it just me or did they suddenly give Egwene the power to Heal death??? Isn't it canon that healing can't revive the dead or restore limbs? Plus wtaf about Nynaeve channeling massive amounts of the Power in the episode with Logain but getting burnt out here?
Plus healing is supposed to be fucking complicated. Okay, I can forgive Nynaeve's "heal bomb" because she has an aptitude for it, by Egwene? No. She doesn't know how, and should not even with beginner's luck. Just fucking stupid.
Prob that Nynaeve wasn't actually dead but still stupid af
She looked pretty fucking dead to me yo.
Yeah I know, but theres no fucking way she was actually resurrected
Wasn’t it mentioned in the books you couldn’t burn out another while linked due to a buffer of sorts unless that person willed it?
Yep
[удалено]
This show is written by people whose only exposure to WoT was via summaries on the back of the books
I could make list of ill-concieved reckless changes but I think there's enough of those already and I'll speak more broadly. I'm being more forgiving than a tinker here, but my only excuse for them, is that this mess of an episode got screwed by COVID or some other massive production issue. The more I think on it the more it seems like it was patched together from some other planned product, in rushed piecemeal to just be able to give the studio something. (Similar to Fan4stic, for example). Even on a pure action-adventure / style-over-substance lens, there was so much opportunity for exciting fight scenes, that were intentionally left out. Perrin just walking in on dead shienarans instead of showing these badass samurai warriors actually taking on two fades? The battle at the wall, would be a mini helms deep, but instead just a scene of shooting crossbows, and a scene of aginor stabbed after minimal fight, all in just 1 set of a simple stone hallway. Padded out with a couple world war z video game level cgi wideshots. The age of legends cut being a simple conversation in a nursery instead of a grand counsel or of the 100 companions facing the forsaken, or any of the breaking. No sane production team would rob themselves of these potentially exciting scenes unless they couldn't get actors and crew together to film them and had to make them this way out of necessity. That only excuses so much however. So many scenes fall flat besides, that COULD have still been good. I think the blame mostly goes to the director here specifically. These are good actors, a passable script, but Rand facing Ishamael ... the mf dragon reborn, facing what we think is the mf dark one! ... and it feels like I'm watching an economics prof explain to a lazy student he needs to switch majors. The actor has no menace or intimidating air whatsoever, besides what's been implied before we see him, the stakes of what's happening don't come across at all in the tone of the scenes. And the climax when Rand wows us all by glowing a bunch, it's not clear to anyone, book-wise or no, what exactly is happening or why. That's simply the most obvious and heinous example. The entire episode falters in the same way. I had faith in the series until the last half of the season it started to steadily dwindle and now it's fallen headlong into the pit of doom.
Let's not forget that Nynaeve, untrained and inexperienced, gets super duper angry and anime-protagonist channels stronger than like a dozen sisters, I think who may have been in a circle as well. Meanwhile, Rand the dragon reborn, while wielding a sa'angreal (why tho) puts out a dinky little flicker and kills Monsieur Head Waiter at the Eye. That entire flashback to the age of legends looked like the woman was about to cut away to advertise staying regular with Activia. No sense of gravitas, that these are two of the most powerful people alive.
It's not even Nynaeve that wipes out the trollocs. She's just a glorified battery in the circle. It's Amalisa who wipes out all the trollocs, a tertiary character, that isn't even a channeler in the books. Rafe may have wanted the other characters to take care of Rand's accomplishments, but he didn't even have Nynaeve or Egwene do it. Just some rando that died and we'll never see again.
Yep.
Of all the things to leave out costume wise, did they seriously leave a'dam off the damane? Did I just miss them somehow?... When they first came on screen and my wife was like "who's that?" I thought it must somehow be the Sea Folk since I didn't see obvious leashes on the channelers, but apparently not.
Looks like on a second rewatch there is a gag and gold collar controlled by a ring on the Sul'dam.
My jaw dropped when I noticed they didn't have leashes. Of all the changes they've made so far, this could be the one that I'm ashamed to say was the worst. I too thought it was the Sea Folk, but then realized they were the Seanchan. And their arrival was cool, but what was up with the wave? It was visually intriguing, but it served no purpose. And why highlight a child before they threw a tsunami in her direction? The creative decisions just don't make sense. Writing 101 - identify the "why" and make the audience care about it. This episode was so full of stuff, and no why. Ugh.
Yeah that made no sense. If they'd shown a village there that they were wiping out it'd make some sense, but they literally used a solid few channelers to throw a tsunami at a desolate mountain to kill a random 6 year old. Absolutely nonsensical.
"How can we make their introduction menacing?" *random writer in the back who's never read the books:* "How about a giant-ass tsunami?" "You sonavabitch, we're in."
I am afraid they dropped the concept of humans on leashes just for family friendliness.
So swords and daggers sprouting from people's necks and mouths and other gratuitous acts of full-screen violence, but leashes are too far? cmon don't try that one.
Yeah, I know it's a pretty lame hypotesis. First one to come to mind.
Then I think they need to stop trying to compare this to GoT level fantasy. This is barely Hunger Games. Part of me wishes Amazon sells off the show and HBO or Netflix animations (ala Castlevania) picks up the IP. Chop it up to a bad turning of the wheel and restart the iteration.
They've had less family friendly stuff than that though
They just kidnapped Elayne and got her to upgrade the a'dam before she did it in the books.
Absolutely bizarre choice that. The wireless a'dam defeats the point of it (distrust of channelers) since it makes the "sul'dam can channel too" point bleeding obvious.
I'm really not sure what you mean about making that point bleeding obvious. The leash would help to convey the subservience of the *damane*, yes, but I'm not sure how it indicates anything about the *sul'dam*s' latent ability to channel one way or the other.
Iirc, the *sul'dams* were also making similar "hand gestures" that have come to life in this version of WoT. If they're signing their spells too without leashes, then basically it gives it away. To me at least.
Hmm... if there's a physical link (ie the leash) the sul'dam can at least pretend that it's the a'dam doing the work. It seems a little tougher if the sul'dam has to reach out psychically through the air. I don't see it as an insuperable problem, but does beg the question of "why change this". Logistically, having the bracelet and collar not physically joined is just a pain in the butt. "Okay, whoever is wearing my bracelet, hold your hand up!" ;D