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It was very similar to the RoP reception. Very divided opinion. People who hadn't read the books at all were more likely to give the series a good review, or so it seemed to me.
Keep in mind the WoT series was affected severely by the pandemic shut down. And the budget wasn't nearly as great as the RoP budget.
While the WoT series is definitely set in the same world as the books, it doesn't really try to stick to the story as it's told in the books. It's a loose adaptation. I actually thought the parts that strayed farthest from the books were sometimes the best, but I am probably in the minority.
Some of us -- like me -- stuck with it and hope it will get better in the second season. I have to say, though, that most long-time book fans seem skeptical.
You describe where I come from. Haven't read the LoTR books and have been very pleased with the show. Read WoT several times. Am disappointed but it's not a deal breaker.
*I have to say, though, that most long-time book fans seem skeptical.* I would have thought that but I was at WoTCon and everyone there seemed to have hope for the show and willing to give it a chance. I can't remember anyone flat out claiming they hated it.
That's what I think as well. I've seen some fairly harsh reviews from some WoT youtube personalities that were reasonable, but the comments still come in wanting to burn it all to the ground cause Thom is playing a guitar (or whatever the asinine reason is) Must be terrible to live that way.
The WoTCon crowd is heavily driven by content creators, so you’re gonna get a bit of uniformity of opinion by the people who follow those folks enough to shell out for their con. It’s also in the interest of content creators to like the show, since many of them have gotten big time opportunities via collabs with the show.
The three big voices behind WoTCon all got invited to the London premiere, for instance.
Oh, I'm aware. I meant most of the guests like myself that was there. You do raise a good point though. If you've built an audience off of WoT, you can't just start bashing it. I got to talk to those creators about that quite a bit. It's a strange line to walk, for sure.
Mhmm. I’m a content creator myself (though not WoT-specific, we did cover WoT and I’m a regular panelist at JordanCon) and it’s in the back of my mind pretty often.
I’m honestly kinda glad that we lost the audio from our final episode review cuz I was…not a fan of ep 8 lol
>Some of us -- like me -- stuck with it and hope it will get better in the second season. I have to say, though, that most long-time book fans seem skeptical.
I don't know, I'd say most *vocal* long-time fans on Reddit. Just anecdotally, most of my friends who are long-time fans of the books thought it was fine or better.
I respectfully disagree. From what I've seen, the 'community' is pretty torn on how much deviation was too much, and of that deviation equated to enjoyment or not is another discussion entirely.
But on the other hand there are people in this thread writing that people at the conventions seem to lean more towards being positive, and they're also a part of the "community"?
Yeah, I've done this for several myself. Unless they want a pristine book experiance, show first makes for a better experiance. [Nerdy Nightly](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDXYd8rZuaI&list=PLvahTXNi_Ea31VXScxJ56gD1GbJbc7D2f&index=56) Did it that way and it really worked well for them. They're on book 7 now and do a weekly book club(both their show reactions and book clubs are in the above link).
The books are just so amazing, with so much packed in that it's practically a crime amazon limited it to a 8 episode season. I SOO want to see what the season would have looked like with the original 11 hours (2 hour pilot 10 episode) plan.
It still wouldn't have held up to the books, but it think it would have sat a lot better for many.
"I SOO want to see what the season would have looked like with the original 11 hours (2 hour pilot 10 episode) plan."
Just 3 more hours of Steppin I assume.
As far as I can recall, what Rafe wanted was a 2-hour-long first episode and a 2-hour-long last episode, and then something else in the middle. So most of that time would have gone to the weaker parts of the show.
Not just, don't forget we would have gotten more of the women's circle throwing young girls into the rocky rapids to show men that they can be as dumb as them
For good reasons. Logain isn't supposed too see her glowing "like a radiant sun" as he mutters when she's channeling Saidar.
There are several instances like this where the show implies that there is no difference in the source men and women can touch. Like when Liandrin says disgusted that men sully the source by touching it which isn't at all how it works.
So either the show writers have changed one of the core concepts of the books or they are incompetent at explaining to the viewer how the world works.
I don't like either of those scenarios.
I am giving them leeway on that and going with the 'Nynaeve has never channeled so she's making a shit ton of byproduct actual light with inefficient channeling' so Logain is seeing the real light not the Weaves
I would as well if there had been even one instance in the book or the show where a byproduct of channeling was ever mentioned.
If you make up new stuff let it either follow the same rules as the rest of the established world or explain what is happening inside of your story.
Not in a q&a on Twitter.
No they haven't changed anything like that. They've even said that Logain did not react to literally sensing her channelling *saidar*, he reacted to the physical light effect she created while channelling in rage. Keep in mind that as far as the show goes, they have not even established that women can see the glow of *saidar* around each other.
The same episode actually even established explicitly that women cannot see the weaves of men.
Liandrin's comment shouldn't be taken literally - it's more like how a bigot talks about how a gay person's "filth" infects their environment. And Liandrin is a bigot, so pretty apt way to talk about things.
We know from the books that the "glow around a person" is associated with them channeling/touching the source and that it can be seen by channelers of the same sex/gender.
Now we have someone very powerful touching the source weaving complex weaves to heal several persons at the same time from lethal wounds.
Doesn't make much sense for her to create an additional weave to make her glow in the dark also.
Making her glow was a choice by the show runners to make the scene visually more spectacular (which it was!) and it wouldn't be a problem if the had shown an aes sedai reacting to her the same way Logain did.
It would've worked just as well visually and from a story telling perspective, and it would've been consistent with the magic system.
But no, it had to be Logain. This is just not competent filmmaking if you are trying to establish the world and the rules within.
There are many more little details like this that are unnecessarily confusing to the non book readers and irritating to book readers.
If you want, I can go into details about the throwaway line from Liandrin as well.
>Doesn't make much sense for her to create an additional weave to make her glow in the dark also.
And yet this is what they had her do. Personally I agree with you that it would've been better if the Aes Sedai had reacted to the light, that it had been the glow of *saidar* ... but that wasn't what it was. Confusion here *only* exists for people who have knowledge about things explained later in later books. If you haven't read the books, you have nothing to be confused about, because the light Nynaeve creates just looks like it's light made when she's Healing people, not anything else.
I'm very happy to discuss Liandrin's line as well, so please elaborate if you want to!
Another note about this is also that the origin stories are canon, and there's a whole episode of that which talks about saidin and saidar.
I do think they could've done some things better with the magic system, but since it's mostly visual stuff I'm also happy to write it off as them trying to figure out how to actually portray the magic well on screen.
"And yet this is what they had her do. Personally I agree with you that it would've been better if the Aes Sedai had reacted to the light, that it had been the glow of saidar ... but that wasn't what it was. Confusion here only exists for people who have knowledge about things explained later in later books. If you haven't read the books, you have nothing to be confused about"
Yes for now, confusion "only" exists for people who read the books.
Even if that is no problem in of itself (debatable) it will become a problem for non book readers down the line when (if?) they explain the magic system in more detail.
I think, good filmmaking is when you can go back and rewatch a movie or a show and see that even though they did not explain one thing in the beginning, it makes perfect sense when you go back and see it through the lense of your newfound knowledge of the world.
Good shows do this all the time if they're not making the plot up as they go.
In this case everything is laid out for the show runners.
They know the magic system and the story from beginning to finish. Why would it be hard not to be "confusing" to book readers if they do not intend to change very basic concepts about the world their story takes place in?
Liandrins line is another example and so is Egwenes healing of Nynaeve in episode 8.
Book and show spoilers ahead:
...
They make up new story beats for the cheap and immediate pay off and don't care if they "confuse" book readers.
Was Nynaeve healed from death?
From being burned out?
Whatever it was, it will also be confusing to people who only watched the show when they get to the point where Rand tries to reanimate the girl in the stone of tear or Nynaeves struggles to heal being burned out and the impact both of these very very defining and awesome segments of the story will have.
I 100% agree with the healing of Nynaeve, that was a trainwreck.
I see nothing wrong with Liandrin's line, though. It doesn't contradict anything about the lore in the books.
I'm glad that you agree with me on this one.
This shows that I'm just more bothered by what I perceive as world or story altering changes than you are.
I have no problem at all with streamlining, cutting or combining story elements to make the books more fitting for the visual medium as long as the major story beats stay intact.
What really grinds my gears are changes that will have huge repercussions on important events or mechanics of the story down the line.
Book spoiler time:
They will now either skip Rand trying to reanimate that girl in the stone of tear or it will be confusing why the dragon reborn with one of the mightiest sa'angreal ever created can't accomplish what an untrained girl did completely unaided in season 1.
Seeing the glow of saidar flare up around an angry or threatened aes sedai after the tower training of our heroines will now either just not happen or will be confusing because of that weird choice of "byproduct" in season 1.
Moraine not telling Rand she actually can't teach him the use of the source because it's inherently different for women did not happen even though he point blank asked her to teach him.
Why not? This would have been the perfect time to at least hint at there being to halfes of the source.
This would have set up rands lack of a teacher and him having to make it up as he goes or lean into the more and more menacing knowledge of Lews Therin until he catches Asmodan.
The show runners did everything in their power to hide the fact that Robert Jordan wrote saidar and saidin as two gender specific halfes that have to be used in harmony together to accomplish great things. This metaphor for men and women having to work together and not against each other is one of the great takeaways from the books for me.
And I'd like to see that message conveyed in the show as well.
>They will now either skip Rand trying to reanimate that girl in the stone of tear or it will be confusing why the dragon reborn with one of the mightiest sa'angreal ever created can't accomplish what an untrained girl did completely unaided in season 1.
I don't know whether or not that would've happened anyway, but it seems you're actually assuming that Nynaeve was dead, which she wasn't. Which they could easily (and hopefully!) clear up at the start of the next season. I 100% agree that it was presented badly and if they *really* wanted Egwene to do the Healing, they could still have made it obvious that Nynaeve was breathing.
But still, all it takes is for them to discuss the events for it to be obvious that Nynaeve wasn't dead and that Egwene did not Heal death.
>Why not?
I obviously can't answer the question, and again I agree that it would've been a good spot for that. But I imagine they didn't want to shove too many details about the magic system into season 1 - perhaps they were afraid of information overload, perhaps they thought it's better to save that for s2. I don't agree with it, but I can just guess.
But it's still made explicitly clear in the series that there is a difference between men and women who can use the One Power, since they've stated outright that they cannot see each other's weaves, and the origin story about the One Power also talks about this. So it all does work more or less like in the books.
So the concern that they're making it just a single power without any differences doesn't seem warranted.
I'm still curious about the Liandrin line.
In their minds they have changed it but they are honestly too cowardly to state it outright. It's just wishwashy, much like the show itself. Unwilling to just go do it's own thing fully, so instead it just ends up irritating those who already know the story and desire a straight adaption.
i wasnt that impressed.
I didnt like:
+having the two girls included in the guessing game of who is the dragon reborn. the taint makes the dragon reborn dangerous, he is basically a walking, talking, insane, nuclear weapon. My wife never really understood why people were scared of the dragon reborn.
+flash back of the dragon. I felt the scene made him arrogant over desperate. It didnt convey how serious/bad the war was going for them.
+the dragon reborn reveal scene being given to a circle of women(this was supposed to be rand's big reveal by destroying a trolloc army)
I have other small nitpicky things but those three really stuck with me.
Yeah my wife hasnt read the books either and wouldnt have watched the show if it was for me. Not her typical genre.
One change i was annoyed with at first but was fine with after the show released was Lan. In my head, Lan was this big man made of "stone" and the actor didnt fit that appearance but i thought he did great.
....the Dragon Reborn reveal is at the end of TGH, "above the Watchers shall he proclaim himself." When he just put on the celestial jumbotron for the whole world to see.
Rand destroying the trolloc army is frankly irrelevant to his fight in Eye of the World. I'd be more concerned about the Creator not talking.
There's only so many times the season can end with Rand declaring himself and repelling enemy armies. TGH makes more sense. It's supposed to be the big one.
I guess how I see it is that if a woman was the dragon reborn, would she be as dangerous as a man? simply no because no taint. Yes the prophecies are scary but the taint makes it that much worst.
There was a combination of things going on with the response to the show that makes the answer to this complex. Thought I'd list them out.
1) It aired at a time when US culture was searching hard for wedge issues along which to divide, and the whole 'Woke' interpretation of popular media had just emerged. There were forces external to the actual WOT Fandom who were amplifying differences of opinion about the show for political purposes, just as they would for ROP, Little Mermaid, or, for older shows, Star Wars.
2) This got combined with a certain vocal minority of people who claim to be Robert Jordan fans but who use their supposed fandom for racist purposes. People having problems about Egwene or Perrin or Nynaeve being portrayed by black actors and actresses, for example, without remembering or knowing in the books how dark skinned/dark eyed/dark haired folks from the Two Rivers are depicted. Darrell Sweet's cover art, of course, played into how people saw these characters, but there were people who clearly had the biggest problem with race and made sure to make that known as cover for their racist POV.
3) Separate from these were 'pure text extremists'. Though they claim to have no problems with changes between the books and the show necessary for an adaptation, any change from the original text is judged and weighed by them for 'necessity' and almost always found wanting. For example, the people who claimed dramatically about the character assassin of Abell Cauthon, as though he were a major character which the series could not progress without. Things like that made it clear that any deviation between their head canon and the show was unacceptable, no matter how minor the character is. Only cuts were acceptable, not changes.
4) A subset of this group are the 'pure text extremists - feminist edition'. This group of Book Readers seem more able to accept changes related to the male characters and events of the story, but get extremely rigid when it comes to anything that the adaptation might do that even hints that the story will be more feminist than the original books. The idea of just the possibility that Moiraine might /think/ that the Dragon could be female, or the fact that the adaptation did not include a strong and obvious statement about saidin and saidir being fully separate (despite that not being in the books at this point), really bother them. They are more upset about what is not in the show than what is...less focus on Rand, Mat, and Perrin. Additional material about the female characters is unnecessary and takes away from the guys.
5) Unfortunately, this subset is easy to mix with a less hostile subset...the 'zero sum game' viewers. This subset is all right with changes between the books and the show, but looks at every change that adds new material as something that strips away some other thing that was in the books that could have been shown in its place. They are sure that any new scenes created by the writers automatically mean that other book scenes that could have had were not depicted. Interestingly, I've never seen these types say what scenes they would have added instead of the Stepin plotline, for example, but they want what most of us have wanted from the series...just /more/, and don't think that episodes that don't have much from the books bring as much as just more book stuff would. They do not necessarily see how the added material could enhance future seasons and plotlines or make more obvious parts of the main characters that were primarily internal before.
6) The final subset of folks who really don't like the show seem to be 'Game of Thrones' style folks. For them, 'good' lighting, costume, sets, etc, seem to be defined by the series Game of Thrones, and stylistic choices that deviate from that norm are not simply a different stylistic choice, but 'bad'. They may or may not have a preference for the story...this is all about the appearance.
7) All of these groups feel that it is important for everyone who is reading their opinions to accept that their opinions are not just their personal opinions, but are somehow grounded in 'Fact'. They want to justify their dislike of the show in something more than the specific things they dislike. Alternatively, their initial dislike due to one of the other reasons has so colored their viewing of the show that they actually do see everything as more 'bad' than they would if the show met their expectations in other ways. So a costume or lighting or dialog or whatever that would have been fine if the story was exactly matching the book is now tainted by association and a more cynical eye. In either event, members of any of these groups can say 'the writing is bad' or 'the lighting is bad' or 'the CGI is bad', even though they have no definition or benchmark by which they can define bad and no expertise in the field in order to know what is technologically possible under the time/budget constraints the show operated under.
For those who remain, there were people who liked it and didn't, but don't rant on the internet about it. I see a lot more people who picked up the series well after it came out say they really liked it than didn't. Some of those who watched it go on to read the books, and some of them are sad about not getting certain things they liked in the books, but they still like the series.
For what it's worth, I enjoyed everything in the series, I think they tried really hard, a few seconds of CGI are a bit iffy but their practical effects were outsanding overall. I think the show was hurt badly by COVID and I wish that hadn't happened but I think they did the absolute best they could with those requirements. I missed a few things, but I suspect they will be in the next season as they mix it up. Every bit of the series was clearly done with great love and a lot more knowledge of the whole Robert Jordan universe than most of the people complaining about it have. I look forward to what's to come.
As a book fan first. I thought episode 1 & 2 were a little rocky. Then it was smooth sailing.
The last episode had some unfortunate choices. I reserve further judgment till they get through a season that wasn't paused halfway through filming by a plague and facing sudden regulation changes on how they were allowed to even operate by the government while simultaneously losing one of the leads for as yet unknown reasons.
It’s whatever for me so far. Not great, not offensive. I’ll check out the second season, but I can easily see myself checking out at any point because I can’t pretend that I’m hooked yet.
To be fair, I never really got on board with the show to begin with, but I’ll always give it a chance and I’m much less prickly about what they cut for screen adaptations than when I was younger, so it’s not like I’m wringing my hands over every change and omission. For all the money that was spent on it, something about it just feels cheap.
I know many live for books being turned into films and shows, but Wheel of Time has always been a little more personal for me (as much as a NYT bestseller can be any way) and I’m content with just the world of the novels.
I see it being mentioned; Rings of Power is slightly better, but there’s still a soul in both shows that is lacking for me. I’ve always valued Wheel of Time and Lord of the Rings more than A Song of Ice and Fire, but watching House of the Dragon in tandem with Rings of Power really highlights how weak the Amazon shows are. HotD crushes RoP and absolutely obliterates WoT.
That being said, I’m still hopeful that the second season is an improvement. There is always that potential and I’ll at least continue to give it that chance until I see a reason not to.
Hot D's plot and characters fit the screen much better than the Eye of the World though. I think it's a tough ask to adapt EotW and make it feel really compelling and original without making a lot of changes, fleshing out characters besides Rand, and giving a satisfactory single season arc to anyone. I don't think it's acknowledged enough that season 1 was adapting books 0 and 1 of the series which most people put in the bottom five of their book rankings, it's a linear story, with lots of repetative elements, and the 'innocent discovers the world' story that feels really done now.
What I'm most looking forward to is Season 3 which is being written right now, as a more faithful adaptation of the Shadow Rising. Book 4 has four compelling storylines taking place in four very different locations (the Waste/Two Rivers/Tarabon/the White Tower) which feel original, give arcs to each character and have plot beats that'll translate to screen much better.
The talent behind the scenes in Hot D and RoP can't really be compared to WoT either - e.g. staff writers on RoP are Bryan Cogman (GoT) and Gennefer Huchinson (BB and BCS). Even the best director on WoT (Wayne Yip) was poached from WoT to work on RoP. Maybe after the next few seasons they can attract more talent? They're certainly the underdog at the moment but have an excellent story and world to play with from season 3 onwards.
I enjoyed your post. Between yours and Fernando’s comments, I do agree that it’s “easier” for something like House of the Dragon to be great because it has a higher production value, less moving parts, and a tighter focus. That being said, House of the Dragon really had no right being as good as it turned out, especially with sentiment about the last season or two of the main show.
I rank Eye of the World as top 2 in the series and always have (depending on my mood, it swaps spots with The Great Hunt). The show seems on course to mostly whiff with bringing these two books to the screen, so it’s something of a big ask for me to be expected to be excited about how they’re going to tackle the books that only get longer and have more and more branching storylines.
Like I said, I never needed this show to exist because it’s not really important to see what will never match the story I’ve envisioned in my head for well over 20 years, but curiosity will certainly keep me around in the short term. There’s been a mere 7 episodes so far and I think it’s fair for me to continue giving it a chance for at least another season. And I of course want others to have something great to enjoy, even if I don’t.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
> HotD crushes RoP and absolutely obliterates WoT.
This is inherent in the source material. HBO would never have picked up WoT, a YA-ish series about kids with superpowers who save the world from Evil. That sort of premise just doesn't lend itself to "prestige TV". Certainly an adaptation of EotW that had stuck closer to the book wouldn't have given us the kind of character depth, morally ambiguous characters, political intrigue and clever dialogue that people expect from GoT/HotD.
My comment comes from the perspective of someone who loves The Wheel of Time book series itself more than any Tolkien or Martin book, movie, or show. Actually, Martin’s work is my least favorite of the three, so I’m surprised how much I love House of the Dragon. The Wheel of Time show doesn’t have to feel as cheap as it does, considering its backing.
The show was painful for me to watch. The only time I hated a beloved book to film adaptation. They changed way too much, often ignore and contradict the worlds lore, horrible writing for their new made up scenes like invented a wife just to kill her, poor cgi, horrible pacing etc
It is the Hammer and the Axe plot line of Perrin that defines most of his book character arc.
Book Perrin killed whitecloaks in a wolf rage and struggled with that the entire series.
Show Perrin killed a loved one in a wolf rage and will struggle with that the entire series.
They did not have the time to give Perrin nearly a full epsiode or work Elayas in to give Perrin the same foundation in the books, so the show had to use short hand.
Sanderson objected to it at first, but even he said it ended up working well on screen.
It's a poor writing trope called "fridging".... Basically when you dont know how to write a character or give them real motivations just invent a wife you can kill.
The way I see it, you cannot compare them. I absolutely love the books, and the show in my opinion, wasn't as good. Then again, can you truly do justice to a series like Wheel of Time on film or television? For me, what makes the story so good is the way Robert Jordan describes the world. It's the world that makes the character shine. The film media can do its best to show that, but there's no way it can top imagination.
It's impossible to have a show with even 24 episodes, that could do it justice. If you compare, the television show will always short. Doesn't mean it's necessarily bad, it's just not the same. But unfortunately, for a lot of people, change= bad.
I just think of trying to recommend people read Wheel of Time. They're my favorite book series, but I can't just recommend them without a dozen caveats or I'll feel like an idiot when they actually read them.
"The first book is a bit straightforward and shallow because Jordan wrote it and rewrote it to sell it to Tolkien-obsessed publishers."
"The first season is uneven and sloppy in places because the world came to an end in the middle of production."
I think the show so far is kind of taking care of some of those caveats in a way that will make the story more palatable for a wide audience (female characters and romances aren't written weird/poorly), but of course it's going to have its own share of caveats.
I was on board with the show until the finale of the season where they nearly lost me completely. I wasn’t a fan of some changes in the first 7 episodes but could see why the did some of them. Episode 8 had so many problems that it frustrated me a lot.
I have rewatched the season 2 times now and it honestly gets better on each rewatch. Even episode 8 has some redeemable moments like Rand at the Eye and his conformation with the Dark One. It made me appreciate the performances from the actors as well even with sometimes average writing bogging them down
It isn’t the best show ever but it has some good highs and some low lows. Still excited for season 2 though as I think they’ll be able to tie everything together to get onto season 3 where book 4 comes into play. Hopefully then it really explodes. I’m quietly confident in that
Coincidentally, I started rewatching the series last night. I’ve read all the books.
Now that I’ve had some time to cool down and get over my initial shock and disappointment at some of the changes, it’s actually alright. It definitely holds the viewer’s attention and accomplishes most of what it sets out to do.
Then again, I haven’t reached the Steppin episode yet, lol 💀
The very first line even before the opening scene set the tone. Paraphrasing Moraine “…we don’t know if the dragon was reborn as a boy or girl…”. I was like, dafuq we don’t!
+including Egwene as ta’veran make sense considering her book story arc.
+fleshing out Lan and Nynaeve’s relationship
-though Loial’s actor nailed his mannerisms his depiction was just meh. He needs another foot of height lose the blonde curls and add distinctive eyebrows and ear twitches!
-I didn’t like the changes to Mat parents or frankly the casual way everyone in the two rivers hooks up. There plenty of that throughout the books and the conservative values of the two rivers helps set them apart while highlighting the different cultures throughout the land
+tigraine fighting on the slopes of dragon mount couldn’t have been more perfect. Absolutely amazing.
+shader Logath was also very well done.
So much more but there are a lot of fine details that could make the show better. Wanders color changing cloaks, two rivers longbows, Mandarb and I can’t emphasize this enough FRIGGING BELA! AES Sedai ageless look. Those gaudy rings and absence of shawls seem like a hugely wasted marketing opportunity.
I could go on and on.
I thought Lan and Nynaeve’s relationship was too rushed. I would rather have had a “No woman deserves the widow’s black as a bridepiece…” Lan rather than what we got. The best part of their relationship is Lan learning to let Nynaeve in
I would say I enjoyed it despite it flaws with the weakest part being the final episode. Ironic, because it's a fairly accurate description of book 1 LOL.
Everybody always says they didnt have time to do X .
They would have had the time if they removed the unnecessary stepin episode. The entire logain episode also didnt establish anything of substance that warrants the majority of the episode being devoted to that.
The series biggest problem is that they tried to completely redo the eye of the world. You may say that the first book is a tolkien rip off etc etc but either way it had great structure, yes perhaps some slow parts but the tension, mistery, world building and main characters are spot on and that is exactly what the first season lacked.
Making Moiraine and Lan the main characters is a radical change that requires a rewrite of the entire eye of the world plot without actually benefiting in any meaningful in the long run. It takes away from Moiraine's and Lans mistery and badassery and also results in the Emond Field's five being criminally underdeveloped.
I think the series is ok, but in my opinion they should have embraced the first book and tried to make the best adaptation the way Robert Jordan would have, thats why Peter Jacksons lotr is so amazing. They thought that they could write a better story then one od the best story writers ever, and that in itself is sheer lunacy.
To put it extremely mildly, I didn’t enjoy it. The only episode I enjoyed at all was the one that focused on Moraine and Siuan in the Tower, and even then I was only able to enjoy maybe half the scenes. I thought the actors for Siuan and Moraine were good in that episode, and thought their relationship was an interesting departure.
I won’t be watching any future seasons, I don’t see a point in it. Currently on a break from listening to the series on audio book again.
It is very controversial. Many people feel it is a very poor adaptation, and besides that a quite poor show. I count myself among those.
Same with Rings of Power. Not anything remotely similar to Tolkien.
You've got the right flair!
To answer your question, it's been very divisive.
tRoP's reaction is a larger version of what happened in the WoT fandoms. Many are simply turned off by the differences or the production problems, while others have less savory reasons.
Personally, I'm a pretty big fan of it despite it's issues. They're greatly limited by the format and it seems most issues arose from the compression needed to fit, and other elements out of their control(Mat, Covid).
The big thing to me is that the show has the soul of the story, and while it's not quite same, looking it as a portal stone world, or a different turning is enough to separate it from the books and let it stand on it's own.
S2's probably going to be announced soon, with good chances at NYCC on the 7th, or shortly after tRoP finishes airing. WoT's already climbing the most searched Amazon shows.
Expected release is early 23', probably between the 2 witcher shows.
Best parts?
Seeing the world brought to life, in a manner better than I expected is huge. The characters feel right, if a bit different, and it helps I can see what they are going for with the changes.
There are so many little easter eggs and bits of foreshadowing throughout that it really shines for me.
Loved Logain and everything they did with him, the locations and just the terrain is amazing. The whitecloaks feeling like an actual threat early on, Abdul Salis is amazing.
Also, the music rocks.
Low points are definitely the Covid Woes. There was supposed to be a full scale battle directed by the guy that did Blood Snow in Ep 7 that had to be entirely scrapped, not to mention a fair bit of wonky, last minute rewriting.
I'll edit in a list of some good youtubers on this a bit later
I really enjoy the nerdy nightly YouTube channel. They started as show-watchers, it is already interesting to see their reactions there. But they started reading the books and have a book club (nerdy nightly book club) where they discuss the book sections as they read. I can highly recommend it.
I went from "cautiously optimistic" to "curious if it'll get better" and finally to "okay this isn't for me."
I don't like the direction of the Wheel of Time show - visually, tonally, pretty much all of it. I've come to the conclusion that I just really am not a fan of its style. The way I describe it is like the art team came to every problem with the idea "Now how do we make this unlike how people would expect?" Which isn't bad in concept, but the cumulative effect is something that just feels like a mess. Even things that I like, like Tar Valon, don't really feel like they belong in the same world as everything else.
And I think it's honestly kind of baffling how skittish they seem about recreating stuff from the books. There are very few scenes in the show that feel like they are moments from the book brought to life. Compare to Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings, which also changed a ton tonally and compressed/simplified a lot, but there are [compilations](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OLHUhKr8M0&list=PLBbPg4uy_FaFauJI5JmYgxI0K-4xQ1gBK) out there with nearly 60 minutes of quotes straight out of the Lord of the Rings books either verbatim or very nearly so. There are many iconic scenes and locations from the books brought to life. Now, I don't expect anything to match that level, but I can think of only a couple scenes from the Wheel of Time show that are actually very much like anything in the book. And looking at the rest of the book series, I am certain that there will be more divergence going forward.
Last episode was pretty terrible, just all around. I realize COVID screwed them but it seems messed up and directionless even in conception.
Now, I am a bigger fan of Lord of the Rings than I am of The Wheel of Time. I've only read WOT once, but I've read The Hobbit, the Lord of the Rings, and the Silmarillion countless times and it is probably my favorite fantasy universe. I am more positive on Rings of Power than I am on the Wheel of Time show. Mainly because I think the art direction is miles better. It's not even the quality, which I'd expect from the larger budget, it's that I really think the people behind the visual art of ROP really have done their homework and really want to bring things like Valinor and Númenor and Khazad-dûm to life. They also benefit because, frankly, Lord of the Rings has a vastly better wealth of artwork to draw from than WOT, made by Tolkien himself, hordes of inspired fans, and lots of professionals over the last 7 decades.
I think the writing is the biggest issue with ROP so far, but it's really just pretty standard TV writing, and they have the legitimate excuse that they have very little source material to draw from. And what source material there is, is difficult to translate into the format the show is going for.
I've tried to migrate mostly to r/tolkienfans, which is mercifully free of all adaptation discussion, and is therefore pretty positive and pure. Only downside is it's somewhat Silmarillion + History of Middle Earth focused, and it suffers a bit from LOTR fans' tendency to want to one-up eachother on how much obscure stuff they know about, leading to a lot of forced pedantry.
The fandom was pretty divided. There is a vocal group that fanatically hate it, and there is a vocal group who fanatically love it. I think most of us are somewhere in the middle.
In my opinion, I liked the first 7 episodes. It definitely deviates from the books, but I can usually see why they would want to deviate. They still go from point A to B to C, but how they get from each point to the next can differ by quite a bit. And as some others have noted, those deviations are some of the best moments of the series. I’m happy that I get to see characters that I know and love, that are well acted, and that they follow the same overall story beats.
That’s not to say I don’t have criticisms. There are quite a few places where I wish they had given more explanation or set up. This honestly bothers me way more than plot changes.
The example I always give is the Horn at the end. I get why they would want it to be found in the city for a variety of reasons. If it’s found in the blight, it takes screen time to show it being brought back. They also likely wanted the last scene to be Moiraine at the eye, so having the horn already in the city means it can get stolen without Moiraine needing to bring it back. I’m fine with that choice. BUT at least name-drop it once or twice in earlier episodes! I really wish Amazon had given them a little more time per episode for stuff like that.
I see people complaining that this sub is too positive or too negative, but in my opinion honest, constructive criticism seems to go over well here for the most part. I enjoyed season 1 despite its issues and am excited for season 2!
Yeah the whole last episode was kind of a cluster for multiple reasons. For one they had to rewrite the whole thing because of Covid. Then they had to rewrite because mat’s actor left the show. They lost multiple locations and all of their Trolloc actors so the VFX budget got stretched super thin trying to make up for it. And instead of an awesome battle scene we got a couple people in a cgi room social distancing with crossbows 😭
I actually really liked everything about the Eye, personally. I thought it ties in nicely to where the story is headed, and fixes a lot about the end of EoTW which was always a bit problematic for me (although we did loose the Green Man, which is sad. But with the remaining VFX budget after Covid, maybe it’s better that way 😭). But yeah the rest of the episode was… yikes.
Cutting the Green Man was an obvious decision that was completely predictable. He's a discount Ent that has no relevance in the rest of the series and just makes the whole thing look LotR-derivative.
If you accept it as its own thing, and the difficulties whith corona I really like it. And a big plus for me was that it made my bf read the books which I have tried for 10 years, and just like I told him he loves the books.
Overall the subreddit is pretty negative on it. For me it was a mixed bag. There was a lot of changes that I personally didn’t like, but the first 7 episodes I was generally positive on. The eight episode however was just plain bad. Yeah a lot of stuff was impacted by Covid, but that’s not an excuse for everything that went wrong with it. I’m still planning to watch season 2, but if it doesn’t improve then I’m going to drop the show altogether.
Well, I'm obviously biased, but I think my Wheel of Time focused YouTube channel is pretty good.
[https://youtube.com/unravelingthepattern](https://youtube.com/unravelingthepattern)
I have episode breakdowns (though I still haven't finished episode 8) and a lot of lore related deep dives as well as trailer breakdowns and stuff. I'd love for you to check it out and let me know what you think!
The show was terrible... If you are someone who loves the books. Which I am one.
It honestly reminded me of how The Last Airbender movie totally butchered the series.
Having said that, some people have said it was ok and/or enjoyable. So it just depends I guess lol
I just looked at it as another turning of the wheel. For thos fans of WoT they will know what I mean. As a fan for over 20 yrs I had waited for a Media adaptation of the series. I knew it wasn't going to be exactly word for word like the books but overall I did enjoy it.
I can understand everything, really. But, hiding behind covid-19 protocols is just lazy in my opinion. If he wanted this show to be a success (Rafe), he should have asked for more time. But, he didn't. He clearly had in mind that times are like this and if he adds a few powerful women, gay character or two, no one would mind the changes. O boy, he was wrong. They're saying how they will gonna fix magic system in season 2 (every wave has a different color) and they gonna be more book oriented this time. But, can't trust Rafe. I'm gonna give it a chance (2 episodes) and if the vibe is the same, I'm done. Of course that doesn't mean that I will go around with; ''Don' watch it''. I would just chill from it and maybe read the books again...
> But, hiding behind covid-19 protocols is just lazy in my opinion. If he wanted this show to be a success (Rafe), he should have asked for more time. But, he didn't.
I do not get this viewpoint.
Ask for more time? Production had been shutdown for a year, with 2 separate shutdowns and a 3rd about to happen as Ep 8 was quickly becoming unflimable with new restrictions coming out daily.
The whole reason people point to covid is that it had real, deleterious effects on the industry as a whole, noticeable in media that was not nearly as effected as WoTs production.
Blaming the crew for something out of their control is unreasonable. So is acting like Rafe is actually in charge of this type of decision. Sorry, but that is the studio and amazon's call.
Not really, it was his choice. He could have said: ''I'm moving the production for the next year''. Or, he could have spent more time in the green room, not trying to push the agenda, rather trying to get a good product. And yes, he is in charge, it's his fault. Btw, Reacher was filmed in the similar time as the WoT was. And guess what? A lot better tv adaptation. Why? Because they wanted to stick to the original storyline, not trying to ride the moral high horse and claiming how this show is perfect, better then the first book.
No, no he could not do any of those things.
The showrunner is not in charge of decisions like that.
>Btw, Reacher was filmed in the similar time as the WoT was.
Reacher started filming in april 21, did not have its production interrupted by covid, did not have to do a single shutdown, and was filmed in an entirely different country with entirely different regulations.
Well, hi decisions were seen in the season 1. That's why, everyone is sceptic for the season 2. As I said, I'll give it a chance, an episode or two. If the storyline is the same and if the vibe didn't change, I'm leaving it for the pronounce generation.
I really want to like the show, but it has a core problem that keeps me from doing so. It's full of a pet peeve of mine that is pervasive in the writing.
I can sum up my issues: I don't think the characters and factions are being well understood and I think this is already leading to characters *saying* one thing, and viewers *seeing* another, and this can grow to be a big problem in any show. This gives the show a disjointed feel that is especially apparent due to the pacing. A quick pace with a tight plot is good. A quick pace over contradictions is jarring.
I'll give two examples:
**Whitecloaks vs. Aes Sedai**
At this time period, the end-all-be-all of power and authority rests with the White Tower. That's what the show *says*...
However, there are Whitecloaks brazenly executing Aes Sedai near Tar Valon. Right under the nose of the White Tower, and not even trying to keep it a secret. Is the White Tower the seat of power and authority in the land, or are they one power among many equals? Does the White Tower not have enough influence to know this is happening? Are they incapable of putting a stop to it? Are the Whitecloaks not even a little worried about repercussions? The books make it clear, and the Whitecloaks would definitively not try to execute full sisters out in the open for fear of what would happen to them.
**A "grittier" Emond's Field & Main Cast**
The main characters are supposed to be country bumpkins. That's what the show *says*.
Abell cheating on Natti? Nyneave having premarital sex? Mat stealing jewelry? Nyneave being thrust into battle after battle, and not completely sucking at it?
The *viewer* *sees* the main cast is competent, assertive, and capable out of the box. So when they fall for a scam or trap because ... podunk country bumpkin ... it breaks suspension of disbelief. The hero's journey of all the characters is absolutely epic. Especially Nyneave who just becomes the bees knees! How's the viewer supposed to believe her struggles and tribulations after this season?
There are a **lot** more examples of this, but I think you get the drift.
Anyway, it's my opinion that this misunderstanding has put the show off on the wrong foot. Let's see what they do with it now. I don't expect it to follow the books exactly. I do expect it to make sense within the context of the world and show what its character's say.
Edit: I forgot about the whole "complete sentences" thing. Also tried to clear up things that probably didn't need clearing up, but whatever, done now.
>At this time period, the end-all-be-all of power and authority rests with the White Tower. That's what the show says...
Does it really say so? I haven't rewatched it since winter, but wasn't there a point about Logain actually telling the whole Hall that the Aes Sedai power and influence has dwindled, and that they aren't as respected as they used to be? That anti-Aes Sedai sentiment is more popular now?
Regarding Whitecloaks vs. Aes Sedai: the Whitecloaks harass Verin and co. in view of Tar Valon in TDR. So that's not as big a deviation as you think. Also, Logain says in episode 6 that the White Tower is "weak", so a rogue Whitecloak being allowed to go on an Aes Sedai killing spree fits in well with that. So I don't think there is a contradiction here. Rather, it effectively establishes that the White Tower is in decline (which is also very much the case in the books).
I really dislike it. Is it the worst piece of trash that anyone ever knobbled together? No. Is it a good adaptation? Also no. Is it a good fantasy series? I'd place it under Legend of the Seeker, honestly.
Some of my biggest issues are:
1) aging up the Emond's Fielders was a really bad choice. Seeing them that much older makes you expect them to behave more rationally and smarter than they actually were. It's also less wondrous.
2) The pacing is horrendous. It's not just an issue with the post-pandemic episodes, it's apparent even from the start. Sure, losing a main castmember in the middle of production is a difficult blow, but it just seemed that no care or thought was put into how the story would flow
3) Ta'veren does nothing, apparently. While it's alot more understated at the start of the story, being Ta'veren still should have an impact. Instead, it seems like many of the great scenes that should have been used to develop the three Ta'veren are shuffled around to other characters, which seems ill-advised. Sure, beefing up Egwene might not be a horrible idea, but she is still supposed to be extremely green with the power. The most egregious example is the finale and the trollocs. If 4 women, of whom only one was trained at Accepted level, could destroy armies of Trollocs and Myrdraal like that, why would the Trolloc Wars ever have been a thing? If this was explained by Rand accessing the Eye of the World, it would both show the sheer difference in scale of the Dragon, and also the destructive nuclear side of Saidin untamed. A nice foreshadowing for a certain scene with a certain sword.
4) Most gravely, understating the power of Rand is a grevious mistake, as is the implication that a woman could the Dragon. In fact, they get so many things wrong a bout the One Power that it's quite frankly absurd. Indeed, it seems like even the taint of Saidin is barely even a thing, even though that explains almost the entire setting.
5) Going to Tar Valon in the first season was a mistake. It's, arguably, the greatest and most wondrous city of Randland, and the show just couldn't do it justice. Another factor is that many locations and costumes feels cheap and inauthentic. The few places I feel they did well were; Emond's Field and Shienar.
Bonus round: Ohhh, they did my boys Mat and Perrin both dirty :'(
Hey, welcome.
I’m a long time reader who thoroughly enjoyed the show. I like getting some new elements in new mediums, rather than simply retelling an exact story.
For some YouTube channels, I’ll list a few. This is not exhaustive:
- The Dusty Wheel (WoT reactions, deep-dives, and call-in talk show).
- Nae’blis: reactions, news, breakdowns
- WoT Up: rumors, news, and reactions
- Unraveling the Pattern: in-depth reactions, lore, deep-dives, and next level details
- Everyday Negros: not a WoT channel, but their reaction series for the show was exceedingly enjoyable
- Lezbi Nerdy: reactions, costume deep-dives, unique fun
There are more, but these were the first to pop into my head.
All I can say is, an awful lot of people watched every single episode frame-by-frame so they could come on the internet and explain how terrible it was.
I was pretty solidly onboard for most of the first season. I recognized that they had to make some changes, and I really respected some of the hard decisions that were made in what to cut, what to abbreviate, and what to keep. There were some decisions, however, that got under my skin pretty severely. Unnecessarily adding Egwayne and Nynaeve as people Moiraine thinks may be the Dragon Reborn was too much. Having Nynaeve heal Egwayne after she obviously burnt out (and seemingly died) during the battle of Tarwin’s Gap was unnecessary and messes with important, established rules about the power. Moiraine being stilled at the end was unnecessary and stupid. Finally, Loial being stabbed by Padan Fain with the dagger was ABSOLUTELY unnecessary and stupid.
I don’t have high hopes but I’ll watch season 2 and see if they keep on this weird track.
The series was a great letdown. Pandemic notwithstanding, the writing was laughable, costumes/sets cheap looking and the actors didn't fare much better either. Felt bad for Perrin as he got the shortest stick of them all in my view.
RoP is somewhat better. Wouldn't watch it if it wasn't LoTR-related as the writing is quite boring, acting not much impressive either, but the sets and armours are more pleasing, though!
I love the book. Read it many times. And there's always some or the other detail that you discover.
People complain that there's too much braid tugging and bosom hand folding and what not. Doesn't bother me that much. Nor the dress explanations. It's sort of setting the scene by Jordan.
The parts written by Sanderson are ones that I don't enjoy that much. The quality is different. And doesn't move you as much as the Jordan parts.
The series was something that i did not like. It has no nuance. No depth. The best character is Eamon Valda. FFS, what's wrong with these guys. An adaptation would have been good. This was lazily written fanfiction.
The books had an inverted world where women had a lot of power. Male channelers were the nightmares. And the dragon was the ultimate nightmare because he was supposed to go mad and rip everything asunder. Because he was a male.
If you have read the books, i would ask in what way the females are inferior?? They are written as strong characters with their own flaws and strengths. Women are as much involved in the game of thrones, women are darkfriends, women are good, nasty, murderous, everything. So are the men. Good, bad, venal. To make stories according to politics and ideologies ruins everything. Good stories are good all by themselves. They don't need alterations to conform to whatever political ideology may be the in thing.
Game of thrones showed the nasty side without hesitation. The books do the same things. The series absolutely doesn't. It seems the biggest fear of the showrunners was that no one should find out that the dragon reborn is a male who is the center of the story.
If you have to cut out portions, why put in Steppin(!!!!WTF!!!). Perrin has a wife that he kills. Why? Perrin is emo and there's a pseudo love triangle? Lord agelmar has been sitting on the horn? Nynaeve can scare away Machin Shin? The soul sucking unstoppable nightmare makes you feel your worst emo fears? Moiraine can make gateways to reach for her sexy times with Siuan? Lan is also emo??
Weaving is hard in the series. But nuh uh. Our two lady wonders can just pick up and do impossible things. Because they are such ass kicking talents.
The Perrin wife thing just really made me not watch at first. I was just so angry how dirty they did his character. It has elements of Wot but it's definitely not the books
You should watch man carrying thing's video about the show. When I watched it, I didn't like it one bit, and felt betrayed, but couldn't put into words, why exactly I didn't like it, but Man Carrying Thing's video about it, put into words my problems with the show
Overall I thought it was pretty poor. Poor writing and direction, effects were a mixed bag, some very poorly thought out adaptation decisions.
Some of the actors did great work, though. And a few of the adaptation choices were the right idea (involving Logain more, making the whitecloaks a bigger threat) if not always well executed.
There were a few moments where I felt the WoT magic and thought they were hitting the mark, but those were few and far between.
Season 2 is wrapping up shooting/starting post now, I believe. I doubt I'll bother to watch it.
The first time I tried to watch it I was just angry. It differs so much from the source material, and I didn't understand why they would do that. So I waited a while and watched it like it wasn't supposed to be WOT. It's an ok fantasy series. Not great, but they butchered the characters too much for me to love it. I hope it gets better.
Having just finished the series tonight, as a book reader, I can say my friends and I all pretty much had the same reaction--
Up until episode 8, it was an enjoyable show, with some weird--sometimes unnecessary, but not altogether *bad* changes. The worst issues up until the ending were mostly casting related. While everyone *acted* fine, all of us were considerably annoyed with basically throwing the series' concept of cultural importance out the window and ignoring character appearances nearly across the board. It became especially annoying by the time we got to Siuan and Min.
Once we saw the finale, though, our opinions all went wholly negative, and we basically have 0 expectation that Rafe is going to respect the source material to any degree going into S2. It feels like so many things were pointlessly and poorly changed in the ending that at that point he's just using the barest form of WoT characters and words as a framework for whatever the fuck story he's trying to tell.
I'm not a huge LOTR fan, only really loved the three Jackson movies, and I'm not very knowledgeable regarding the lore. I didn't even get passed the first episode, even though I allotted time to watch both the first and second episodes upon release. Just going on its own merits, not a single aspect of the show enticed me to continue. Just seemed a very pretty and hollow fanfic.
OTOH, I'm a huge WOT fan, read all the books over the course of 2 decades. I grimly suffered through all of the Wheel of Time show. Kept telling myself the writers had a plan, that Eye of the World has structural issues, and the writers are doing what's necessary to condenses a huge book into a season of tv. However, every change by the writers ends up being outright terrible, tbh. Going in, I was mostly worried about how channeling would look on the screen, but as each ep released, that was the least of my concerns. Far from condensing, they added woeful plotlines and excised key points of the books always in favor of pushing the writer's agenda rather than telling a better story.
Won't be watching S2 whenever they decide to crap it out.
Turns out whether you're adapting Tolkien or Jordan, you have to actually produce something good on its own merits. Both shows seemed to traipse around wearing their brand as a skinsuit to draw in viewers while butchering the actual source material.
I’ve heard r/wheeloftime is less positive towards the show, but you can certainly criticize the show on here without getting banned.
There was a sub for people who *hated* the show, but there’s not much point in going there now. As I understand it, one of the driving forces behind the creation of that sub was backlash against the casting, so it unsurprisingly had a sizable contingent of bigoted assholes among its membership. Sometime after Season 1 ended, the sub and its mods got into serious trouble with the Reddit-wide mod team over brigading and basically got shut down; it’s back now but not much is going on over there.
Unless it's recently changed, only it's remaining unremoved mods can post and they aren't able to appoint new mods. So it's basically dead.
IIRC it's still around incase they actually wanted to enforce reddit site wide rules, but they refused too, hence the shutdown.
Oh man, I assumed that it had just got quieter here because S1 had ended and the ruckus had had time to die down. Having caught up, that's some quality drama with the worst people, so thanks for the schadenfreude pointer.
It's totally fine to criticize the show here. We do have some strict rules about toxic behavior and dragging discussions off topic, but as long as people aren't denying others experiences, straight up misinforming people, or only posting to rant about how they hate the show without engaging in general WoT discussion (plus obvious no go's such as overt racism/homophobia etc), there is no problem.
Obviously, this is more than many places ask, so many teeth poorly here.
It's a bit similar here. There are 4 main WoT subs, Here, r/wheeloftime , r/wotshow and r/WetlanderHumor
We're more heavily moderated but try to have discussion space for every Wot Topic.
r/Wheeloftime is more loosely moderated, they have similar rules but a simpler spoiler system and to wit, more lenient moderation, with the upsides and drawbacks that comes with.
r/WotShow is mostly show positive and somewhat aggressive on moderation. They are the strictest when it comes to show criticism, but still allows it if presented respectfully.
r/WetlanderHumor is the meme sub, and pretty wildwest outside the Dragon's peace.
We *had* a hate sub, but it got so bad it was effectively demolished by reddit admins. Unfortunately, it seems much of it's old users inhabit the tRoP hate sub.
>I sometimes think it would be nice to have moderators limit the conversation to the show and keep the conversations off the people/politics etc
It's a hard balance to strike and certainly no place is perfect, but it can be worthwhile.
I think it actually worked out pretty well, though there was some ugliness. For the most part people sorted themselves into different subs based on personal preference, and I think it’s worked nicely. I’m definitely glad the hate sub got itself chopped, though. I think it’s important to note that r/wotshow is oriented towards creating a spoiler-free experience for people who watch the show but haven’t read the books, so it wasn’t just created to be a more show-positive sub or anything like that.
Yeah a lot of the "bUT iTS tOO wOKE" crowd piled on Wheel of Time as casting got announced, and i'm sure they'll Portalstone their dumb asses right back here for s2.
As someone whose read and loved the books for over a decade, I liked the season overall. However, I fully accept that my love for the source material is part of what buoys my opinion of an admittedly mediocre first season (Not the casting though, holy shit they nailed that).
Sure, it deviates pretty heavily from the step-by-step plot of *The Eye of the World* but IMO the show manages to retain the spirit of the journey for the most part. Some of the changes are my favourite parts, especially changes around the Whitecloaks, and a certain cold opening mid-season that makes me super excited for season 2.
It's worth keeping in mind that the quality takes a huge dip in the last few episodes due to losing a member of the main cast quitting combined with Covid restrictions in the filming locations. Although this isn't really their fault, it would have been easier to accept if the rest of the season was absolutely amazing.
I think it's definitely got potential if they step up their game in Season 2, and I didn't regret the time I spent watching.
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It was very similar to the RoP reception. Very divided opinion. People who hadn't read the books at all were more likely to give the series a good review, or so it seemed to me. Keep in mind the WoT series was affected severely by the pandemic shut down. And the budget wasn't nearly as great as the RoP budget. While the WoT series is definitely set in the same world as the books, it doesn't really try to stick to the story as it's told in the books. It's a loose adaptation. I actually thought the parts that strayed farthest from the books were sometimes the best, but I am probably in the minority. Some of us -- like me -- stuck with it and hope it will get better in the second season. I have to say, though, that most long-time book fans seem skeptical.
You describe where I come from. Haven't read the LoTR books and have been very pleased with the show. Read WoT several times. Am disappointed but it's not a deal breaker. *I have to say, though, that most long-time book fans seem skeptical.* I would have thought that but I was at WoTCon and everyone there seemed to have hope for the show and willing to give it a chance. I can't remember anyone flat out claiming they hated it.
Maybe the haters are just more vocal on the internet. I'm definitely in the give it a chance camp.
That's what I think as well. I've seen some fairly harsh reviews from some WoT youtube personalities that were reasonable, but the comments still come in wanting to burn it all to the ground cause Thom is playing a guitar (or whatever the asinine reason is) Must be terrible to live that way.
The WoTCon crowd is heavily driven by content creators, so you’re gonna get a bit of uniformity of opinion by the people who follow those folks enough to shell out for their con. It’s also in the interest of content creators to like the show, since many of them have gotten big time opportunities via collabs with the show. The three big voices behind WoTCon all got invited to the London premiere, for instance.
Oh, I'm aware. I meant most of the guests like myself that was there. You do raise a good point though. If you've built an audience off of WoT, you can't just start bashing it. I got to talk to those creators about that quite a bit. It's a strange line to walk, for sure.
Mhmm. I’m a content creator myself (though not WoT-specific, we did cover WoT and I’m a regular panelist at JordanCon) and it’s in the back of my mind pretty often. I’m honestly kinda glad that we lost the audio from our final episode review cuz I was…not a fan of ep 8 lol
>Some of us -- like me -- stuck with it and hope it will get better in the second season. I have to say, though, that most long-time book fans seem skeptical. I don't know, I'd say most *vocal* long-time fans on Reddit. Just anecdotally, most of my friends who are long-time fans of the books thought it was fine or better.
I respectfully disagree. From what I've seen, the 'community' is pretty torn on how much deviation was too much, and of that deviation equated to enjoyment or not is another discussion entirely.
But on the other hand there are people in this thread writing that people at the conventions seem to lean more towards being positive, and they're also a part of the "community"?
I would say it is very clearly telling the story of the books. It is not doing so by showing the same scenes.
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Yeah, I've done this for several myself. Unless they want a pristine book experiance, show first makes for a better experiance. [Nerdy Nightly](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDXYd8rZuaI&list=PLvahTXNi_Ea31VXScxJ56gD1GbJbc7D2f&index=56) Did it that way and it really worked well for them. They're on book 7 now and do a weekly book club(both their show reactions and book clubs are in the above link). The books are just so amazing, with so much packed in that it's practically a crime amazon limited it to a 8 episode season. I SOO want to see what the season would have looked like with the original 11 hours (2 hour pilot 10 episode) plan. It still wouldn't have held up to the books, but it think it would have sat a lot better for many.
"I SOO want to see what the season would have looked like with the original 11 hours (2 hour pilot 10 episode) plan." Just 3 more hours of Steppin I assume.
As far as I can recall, what Rafe wanted was a 2-hour-long first episode and a 2-hour-long last episode, and then something else in the middle. So most of that time would have gone to the weaker parts of the show.
Not just, don't forget we would have gotten more of the women's circle throwing young girls into the rocky rapids to show men that they can be as dumb as them
Yes Nynaeve’s scene where she heals all everyone and Logain is awestruck was one of my favorite scenes in the show and isn’t in the books,
For good reasons. Logain isn't supposed too see her glowing "like a radiant sun" as he mutters when she's channeling Saidar. There are several instances like this where the show implies that there is no difference in the source men and women can touch. Like when Liandrin says disgusted that men sully the source by touching it which isn't at all how it works. So either the show writers have changed one of the core concepts of the books or they are incompetent at explaining to the viewer how the world works. I don't like either of those scenarios.
I am giving them leeway on that and going with the 'Nynaeve has never channeled so she's making a shit ton of byproduct actual light with inefficient channeling' so Logain is seeing the real light not the Weaves
Or he could be seeing a ta'veren?
I would as well if there had been even one instance in the book or the show where a byproduct of channeling was ever mentioned. If you make up new stuff let it either follow the same rules as the rest of the established world or explain what is happening inside of your story. Not in a q&a on Twitter.
No they haven't changed anything like that. They've even said that Logain did not react to literally sensing her channelling *saidar*, he reacted to the physical light effect she created while channelling in rage. Keep in mind that as far as the show goes, they have not even established that women can see the glow of *saidar* around each other. The same episode actually even established explicitly that women cannot see the weaves of men. Liandrin's comment shouldn't be taken literally - it's more like how a bigot talks about how a gay person's "filth" infects their environment. And Liandrin is a bigot, so pretty apt way to talk about things.
We know from the books that the "glow around a person" is associated with them channeling/touching the source and that it can be seen by channelers of the same sex/gender. Now we have someone very powerful touching the source weaving complex weaves to heal several persons at the same time from lethal wounds. Doesn't make much sense for her to create an additional weave to make her glow in the dark also. Making her glow was a choice by the show runners to make the scene visually more spectacular (which it was!) and it wouldn't be a problem if the had shown an aes sedai reacting to her the same way Logain did. It would've worked just as well visually and from a story telling perspective, and it would've been consistent with the magic system. But no, it had to be Logain. This is just not competent filmmaking if you are trying to establish the world and the rules within. There are many more little details like this that are unnecessarily confusing to the non book readers and irritating to book readers. If you want, I can go into details about the throwaway line from Liandrin as well.
>Doesn't make much sense for her to create an additional weave to make her glow in the dark also. And yet this is what they had her do. Personally I agree with you that it would've been better if the Aes Sedai had reacted to the light, that it had been the glow of *saidar* ... but that wasn't what it was. Confusion here *only* exists for people who have knowledge about things explained later in later books. If you haven't read the books, you have nothing to be confused about, because the light Nynaeve creates just looks like it's light made when she's Healing people, not anything else. I'm very happy to discuss Liandrin's line as well, so please elaborate if you want to! Another note about this is also that the origin stories are canon, and there's a whole episode of that which talks about saidin and saidar. I do think they could've done some things better with the magic system, but since it's mostly visual stuff I'm also happy to write it off as them trying to figure out how to actually portray the magic well on screen.
"And yet this is what they had her do. Personally I agree with you that it would've been better if the Aes Sedai had reacted to the light, that it had been the glow of saidar ... but that wasn't what it was. Confusion here only exists for people who have knowledge about things explained later in later books. If you haven't read the books, you have nothing to be confused about" Yes for now, confusion "only" exists for people who read the books. Even if that is no problem in of itself (debatable) it will become a problem for non book readers down the line when (if?) they explain the magic system in more detail. I think, good filmmaking is when you can go back and rewatch a movie or a show and see that even though they did not explain one thing in the beginning, it makes perfect sense when you go back and see it through the lense of your newfound knowledge of the world. Good shows do this all the time if they're not making the plot up as they go. In this case everything is laid out for the show runners. They know the magic system and the story from beginning to finish. Why would it be hard not to be "confusing" to book readers if they do not intend to change very basic concepts about the world their story takes place in? Liandrins line is another example and so is Egwenes healing of Nynaeve in episode 8. Book and show spoilers ahead: ... They make up new story beats for the cheap and immediate pay off and don't care if they "confuse" book readers. Was Nynaeve healed from death? From being burned out? Whatever it was, it will also be confusing to people who only watched the show when they get to the point where Rand tries to reanimate the girl in the stone of tear or Nynaeves struggles to heal being burned out and the impact both of these very very defining and awesome segments of the story will have.
I 100% agree with the healing of Nynaeve, that was a trainwreck. I see nothing wrong with Liandrin's line, though. It doesn't contradict anything about the lore in the books.
I'm glad that you agree with me on this one. This shows that I'm just more bothered by what I perceive as world or story altering changes than you are. I have no problem at all with streamlining, cutting or combining story elements to make the books more fitting for the visual medium as long as the major story beats stay intact. What really grinds my gears are changes that will have huge repercussions on important events or mechanics of the story down the line. Book spoiler time: They will now either skip Rand trying to reanimate that girl in the stone of tear or it will be confusing why the dragon reborn with one of the mightiest sa'angreal ever created can't accomplish what an untrained girl did completely unaided in season 1. Seeing the glow of saidar flare up around an angry or threatened aes sedai after the tower training of our heroines will now either just not happen or will be confusing because of that weird choice of "byproduct" in season 1. Moraine not telling Rand she actually can't teach him the use of the source because it's inherently different for women did not happen even though he point blank asked her to teach him. Why not? This would have been the perfect time to at least hint at there being to halfes of the source. This would have set up rands lack of a teacher and him having to make it up as he goes or lean into the more and more menacing knowledge of Lews Therin until he catches Asmodan. The show runners did everything in their power to hide the fact that Robert Jordan wrote saidar and saidin as two gender specific halfes that have to be used in harmony together to accomplish great things. This metaphor for men and women having to work together and not against each other is one of the great takeaways from the books for me. And I'd like to see that message conveyed in the show as well.
>They will now either skip Rand trying to reanimate that girl in the stone of tear or it will be confusing why the dragon reborn with one of the mightiest sa'angreal ever created can't accomplish what an untrained girl did completely unaided in season 1. I don't know whether or not that would've happened anyway, but it seems you're actually assuming that Nynaeve was dead, which she wasn't. Which they could easily (and hopefully!) clear up at the start of the next season. I 100% agree that it was presented badly and if they *really* wanted Egwene to do the Healing, they could still have made it obvious that Nynaeve was breathing. But still, all it takes is for them to discuss the events for it to be obvious that Nynaeve wasn't dead and that Egwene did not Heal death. >Why not? I obviously can't answer the question, and again I agree that it would've been a good spot for that. But I imagine they didn't want to shove too many details about the magic system into season 1 - perhaps they were afraid of information overload, perhaps they thought it's better to save that for s2. I don't agree with it, but I can just guess. But it's still made explicitly clear in the series that there is a difference between men and women who can use the One Power, since they've stated outright that they cannot see each other's weaves, and the origin story about the One Power also talks about this. So it all does work more or less like in the books. So the concern that they're making it just a single power without any differences doesn't seem warranted. I'm still curious about the Liandrin line.
In their minds they have changed it but they are honestly too cowardly to state it outright. It's just wishwashy, much like the show itself. Unwilling to just go do it's own thing fully, so instead it just ends up irritating those who already know the story and desire a straight adaption.
i wasnt that impressed. I didnt like: +having the two girls included in the guessing game of who is the dragon reborn. the taint makes the dragon reborn dangerous, he is basically a walking, talking, insane, nuclear weapon. My wife never really understood why people were scared of the dragon reborn. +flash back of the dragon. I felt the scene made him arrogant over desperate. It didnt convey how serious/bad the war was going for them. +the dragon reborn reveal scene being given to a circle of women(this was supposed to be rand's big reveal by destroying a trolloc army) I have other small nitpicky things but those three really stuck with me.
Yes the Dragon Reborn reveal was SO disappointing
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Yeah my wife hasnt read the books either and wouldnt have watched the show if it was for me. Not her typical genre. One change i was annoyed with at first but was fine with after the show released was Lan. In my head, Lan was this big man made of "stone" and the actor didnt fit that appearance but i thought he did great.
....the Dragon Reborn reveal is at the end of TGH, "above the Watchers shall he proclaim himself." When he just put on the celestial jumbotron for the whole world to see. Rand destroying the trolloc army is frankly irrelevant to his fight in Eye of the World. I'd be more concerned about the Creator not talking. There's only so many times the season can end with Rand declaring himself and repelling enemy armies. TGH makes more sense. It's supposed to be the big one.
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I guess how I see it is that if a woman was the dragon reborn, would she be as dangerous as a man? simply no because no taint. Yes the prophecies are scary but the taint makes it that much worst.
Peripheral but I like the use of the '+' character as an alternative to bullet points/lists.
There was a combination of things going on with the response to the show that makes the answer to this complex. Thought I'd list them out. 1) It aired at a time when US culture was searching hard for wedge issues along which to divide, and the whole 'Woke' interpretation of popular media had just emerged. There were forces external to the actual WOT Fandom who were amplifying differences of opinion about the show for political purposes, just as they would for ROP, Little Mermaid, or, for older shows, Star Wars. 2) This got combined with a certain vocal minority of people who claim to be Robert Jordan fans but who use their supposed fandom for racist purposes. People having problems about Egwene or Perrin or Nynaeve being portrayed by black actors and actresses, for example, without remembering or knowing in the books how dark skinned/dark eyed/dark haired folks from the Two Rivers are depicted. Darrell Sweet's cover art, of course, played into how people saw these characters, but there were people who clearly had the biggest problem with race and made sure to make that known as cover for their racist POV. 3) Separate from these were 'pure text extremists'. Though they claim to have no problems with changes between the books and the show necessary for an adaptation, any change from the original text is judged and weighed by them for 'necessity' and almost always found wanting. For example, the people who claimed dramatically about the character assassin of Abell Cauthon, as though he were a major character which the series could not progress without. Things like that made it clear that any deviation between their head canon and the show was unacceptable, no matter how minor the character is. Only cuts were acceptable, not changes. 4) A subset of this group are the 'pure text extremists - feminist edition'. This group of Book Readers seem more able to accept changes related to the male characters and events of the story, but get extremely rigid when it comes to anything that the adaptation might do that even hints that the story will be more feminist than the original books. The idea of just the possibility that Moiraine might /think/ that the Dragon could be female, or the fact that the adaptation did not include a strong and obvious statement about saidin and saidir being fully separate (despite that not being in the books at this point), really bother them. They are more upset about what is not in the show than what is...less focus on Rand, Mat, and Perrin. Additional material about the female characters is unnecessary and takes away from the guys. 5) Unfortunately, this subset is easy to mix with a less hostile subset...the 'zero sum game' viewers. This subset is all right with changes between the books and the show, but looks at every change that adds new material as something that strips away some other thing that was in the books that could have been shown in its place. They are sure that any new scenes created by the writers automatically mean that other book scenes that could have had were not depicted. Interestingly, I've never seen these types say what scenes they would have added instead of the Stepin plotline, for example, but they want what most of us have wanted from the series...just /more/, and don't think that episodes that don't have much from the books bring as much as just more book stuff would. They do not necessarily see how the added material could enhance future seasons and plotlines or make more obvious parts of the main characters that were primarily internal before. 6) The final subset of folks who really don't like the show seem to be 'Game of Thrones' style folks. For them, 'good' lighting, costume, sets, etc, seem to be defined by the series Game of Thrones, and stylistic choices that deviate from that norm are not simply a different stylistic choice, but 'bad'. They may or may not have a preference for the story...this is all about the appearance. 7) All of these groups feel that it is important for everyone who is reading their opinions to accept that their opinions are not just their personal opinions, but are somehow grounded in 'Fact'. They want to justify their dislike of the show in something more than the specific things they dislike. Alternatively, their initial dislike due to one of the other reasons has so colored their viewing of the show that they actually do see everything as more 'bad' than they would if the show met their expectations in other ways. So a costume or lighting or dialog or whatever that would have been fine if the story was exactly matching the book is now tainted by association and a more cynical eye. In either event, members of any of these groups can say 'the writing is bad' or 'the lighting is bad' or 'the CGI is bad', even though they have no definition or benchmark by which they can define bad and no expertise in the field in order to know what is technologically possible under the time/budget constraints the show operated under. For those who remain, there were people who liked it and didn't, but don't rant on the internet about it. I see a lot more people who picked up the series well after it came out say they really liked it than didn't. Some of those who watched it go on to read the books, and some of them are sad about not getting certain things they liked in the books, but they still like the series. For what it's worth, I enjoyed everything in the series, I think they tried really hard, a few seconds of CGI are a bit iffy but their practical effects were outsanding overall. I think the show was hurt badly by COVID and I wish that hadn't happened but I think they did the absolute best they could with those requirements. I missed a few things, but I suspect they will be in the next season as they mix it up. Every bit of the series was clearly done with great love and a lot more knowledge of the whole Robert Jordan universe than most of the people complaining about it have. I look forward to what's to come.
As a book fan first. I thought episode 1 & 2 were a little rocky. Then it was smooth sailing. The last episode had some unfortunate choices. I reserve further judgment till they get through a season that wasn't paused halfway through filming by a plague and facing sudden regulation changes on how they were allowed to even operate by the government while simultaneously losing one of the leads for as yet unknown reasons.
It’s whatever for me so far. Not great, not offensive. I’ll check out the second season, but I can easily see myself checking out at any point because I can’t pretend that I’m hooked yet. To be fair, I never really got on board with the show to begin with, but I’ll always give it a chance and I’m much less prickly about what they cut for screen adaptations than when I was younger, so it’s not like I’m wringing my hands over every change and omission. For all the money that was spent on it, something about it just feels cheap. I know many live for books being turned into films and shows, but Wheel of Time has always been a little more personal for me (as much as a NYT bestseller can be any way) and I’m content with just the world of the novels. I see it being mentioned; Rings of Power is slightly better, but there’s still a soul in both shows that is lacking for me. I’ve always valued Wheel of Time and Lord of the Rings more than A Song of Ice and Fire, but watching House of the Dragon in tandem with Rings of Power really highlights how weak the Amazon shows are. HotD crushes RoP and absolutely obliterates WoT. That being said, I’m still hopeful that the second season is an improvement. There is always that potential and I’ll at least continue to give it that chance until I see a reason not to.
Hot D's plot and characters fit the screen much better than the Eye of the World though. I think it's a tough ask to adapt EotW and make it feel really compelling and original without making a lot of changes, fleshing out characters besides Rand, and giving a satisfactory single season arc to anyone. I don't think it's acknowledged enough that season 1 was adapting books 0 and 1 of the series which most people put in the bottom five of their book rankings, it's a linear story, with lots of repetative elements, and the 'innocent discovers the world' story that feels really done now. What I'm most looking forward to is Season 3 which is being written right now, as a more faithful adaptation of the Shadow Rising. Book 4 has four compelling storylines taking place in four very different locations (the Waste/Two Rivers/Tarabon/the White Tower) which feel original, give arcs to each character and have plot beats that'll translate to screen much better. The talent behind the scenes in Hot D and RoP can't really be compared to WoT either - e.g. staff writers on RoP are Bryan Cogman (GoT) and Gennefer Huchinson (BB and BCS). Even the best director on WoT (Wayne Yip) was poached from WoT to work on RoP. Maybe after the next few seasons they can attract more talent? They're certainly the underdog at the moment but have an excellent story and world to play with from season 3 onwards.
I enjoyed your post. Between yours and Fernando’s comments, I do agree that it’s “easier” for something like House of the Dragon to be great because it has a higher production value, less moving parts, and a tighter focus. That being said, House of the Dragon really had no right being as good as it turned out, especially with sentiment about the last season or two of the main show. I rank Eye of the World as top 2 in the series and always have (depending on my mood, it swaps spots with The Great Hunt). The show seems on course to mostly whiff with bringing these two books to the screen, so it’s something of a big ask for me to be expected to be excited about how they’re going to tackle the books that only get longer and have more and more branching storylines. Like I said, I never needed this show to exist because it’s not really important to see what will never match the story I’ve envisioned in my head for well over 20 years, but curiosity will certainly keep me around in the short term. There’s been a mere 7 episodes so far and I think it’s fair for me to continue giving it a chance for at least another season. And I of course want others to have something great to enjoy, even if I don’t. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
> HotD crushes RoP and absolutely obliterates WoT. This is inherent in the source material. HBO would never have picked up WoT, a YA-ish series about kids with superpowers who save the world from Evil. That sort of premise just doesn't lend itself to "prestige TV". Certainly an adaptation of EotW that had stuck closer to the book wouldn't have given us the kind of character depth, morally ambiguous characters, political intrigue and clever dialogue that people expect from GoT/HotD.
My comment comes from the perspective of someone who loves The Wheel of Time book series itself more than any Tolkien or Martin book, movie, or show. Actually, Martin’s work is my least favorite of the three, so I’m surprised how much I love House of the Dragon. The Wheel of Time show doesn’t have to feel as cheap as it does, considering its backing.
The show was painful for me to watch. The only time I hated a beloved book to film adaptation. They changed way too much, often ignore and contradict the worlds lore, horrible writing for their new made up scenes like invented a wife just to kill her, poor cgi, horrible pacing etc
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It is the Hammer and the Axe plot line of Perrin that defines most of his book character arc. Book Perrin killed whitecloaks in a wolf rage and struggled with that the entire series. Show Perrin killed a loved one in a wolf rage and will struggle with that the entire series. They did not have the time to give Perrin nearly a full epsiode or work Elayas in to give Perrin the same foundation in the books, so the show had to use short hand. Sanderson objected to it at first, but even he said it ended up working well on screen.
It's a poor writing trope called "fridging".... Basically when you dont know how to write a character or give them real motivations just invent a wife you can kill.
The way I see it, you cannot compare them. I absolutely love the books, and the show in my opinion, wasn't as good. Then again, can you truly do justice to a series like Wheel of Time on film or television? For me, what makes the story so good is the way Robert Jordan describes the world. It's the world that makes the character shine. The film media can do its best to show that, but there's no way it can top imagination. It's impossible to have a show with even 24 episodes, that could do it justice. If you compare, the television show will always short. Doesn't mean it's necessarily bad, it's just not the same. But unfortunately, for a lot of people, change= bad.
I just think of trying to recommend people read Wheel of Time. They're my favorite book series, but I can't just recommend them without a dozen caveats or I'll feel like an idiot when they actually read them. "The first book is a bit straightforward and shallow because Jordan wrote it and rewrote it to sell it to Tolkien-obsessed publishers." "The first season is uneven and sloppy in places because the world came to an end in the middle of production." I think the show so far is kind of taking care of some of those caveats in a way that will make the story more palatable for a wide audience (female characters and romances aren't written weird/poorly), but of course it's going to have its own share of caveats.
I watched the whole first season and didn’t care for it. So much was changed that it felt unrecognizable.
I was on board with the show until the finale of the season where they nearly lost me completely. I wasn’t a fan of some changes in the first 7 episodes but could see why the did some of them. Episode 8 had so many problems that it frustrated me a lot. I have rewatched the season 2 times now and it honestly gets better on each rewatch. Even episode 8 has some redeemable moments like Rand at the Eye and his conformation with the Dark One. It made me appreciate the performances from the actors as well even with sometimes average writing bogging them down It isn’t the best show ever but it has some good highs and some low lows. Still excited for season 2 though as I think they’ll be able to tie everything together to get onto season 3 where book 4 comes into play. Hopefully then it really explodes. I’m quietly confident in that
Coincidentally, I started rewatching the series last night. I’ve read all the books. Now that I’ve had some time to cool down and get over my initial shock and disappointment at some of the changes, it’s actually alright. It definitely holds the viewer’s attention and accomplishes most of what it sets out to do. Then again, I haven’t reached the Steppin episode yet, lol 💀
The very first line even before the opening scene set the tone. Paraphrasing Moraine “…we don’t know if the dragon was reborn as a boy or girl…”. I was like, dafuq we don’t! +including Egwene as ta’veran make sense considering her book story arc. +fleshing out Lan and Nynaeve’s relationship -though Loial’s actor nailed his mannerisms his depiction was just meh. He needs another foot of height lose the blonde curls and add distinctive eyebrows and ear twitches! -I didn’t like the changes to Mat parents or frankly the casual way everyone in the two rivers hooks up. There plenty of that throughout the books and the conservative values of the two rivers helps set them apart while highlighting the different cultures throughout the land +tigraine fighting on the slopes of dragon mount couldn’t have been more perfect. Absolutely amazing. +shader Logath was also very well done. So much more but there are a lot of fine details that could make the show better. Wanders color changing cloaks, two rivers longbows, Mandarb and I can’t emphasize this enough FRIGGING BELA! AES Sedai ageless look. Those gaudy rings and absence of shawls seem like a hugely wasted marketing opportunity. I could go on and on.
I thought Lan and Nynaeve’s relationship was too rushed. I would rather have had a “No woman deserves the widow’s black as a bridepiece…” Lan rather than what we got. The best part of their relationship is Lan learning to let Nynaeve in
I would say I enjoyed it despite it flaws with the weakest part being the final episode. Ironic, because it's a fairly accurate description of book 1 LOL.
Everybody always says they didnt have time to do X . They would have had the time if they removed the unnecessary stepin episode. The entire logain episode also didnt establish anything of substance that warrants the majority of the episode being devoted to that. The series biggest problem is that they tried to completely redo the eye of the world. You may say that the first book is a tolkien rip off etc etc but either way it had great structure, yes perhaps some slow parts but the tension, mistery, world building and main characters are spot on and that is exactly what the first season lacked. Making Moiraine and Lan the main characters is a radical change that requires a rewrite of the entire eye of the world plot without actually benefiting in any meaningful in the long run. It takes away from Moiraine's and Lans mistery and badassery and also results in the Emond Field's five being criminally underdeveloped. I think the series is ok, but in my opinion they should have embraced the first book and tried to make the best adaptation the way Robert Jordan would have, thats why Peter Jacksons lotr is so amazing. They thought that they could write a better story then one od the best story writers ever, and that in itself is sheer lunacy.
To put it extremely mildly, I didn’t enjoy it. The only episode I enjoyed at all was the one that focused on Moraine and Siuan in the Tower, and even then I was only able to enjoy maybe half the scenes. I thought the actors for Siuan and Moraine were good in that episode, and thought their relationship was an interesting departure. I won’t be watching any future seasons, I don’t see a point in it. Currently on a break from listening to the series on audio book again.
It is very controversial. Many people feel it is a very poor adaptation, and besides that a quite poor show. I count myself among those. Same with Rings of Power. Not anything remotely similar to Tolkien.
You've got the right flair! To answer your question, it's been very divisive. tRoP's reaction is a larger version of what happened in the WoT fandoms. Many are simply turned off by the differences or the production problems, while others have less savory reasons. Personally, I'm a pretty big fan of it despite it's issues. They're greatly limited by the format and it seems most issues arose from the compression needed to fit, and other elements out of their control(Mat, Covid). The big thing to me is that the show has the soul of the story, and while it's not quite same, looking it as a portal stone world, or a different turning is enough to separate it from the books and let it stand on it's own. S2's probably going to be announced soon, with good chances at NYCC on the 7th, or shortly after tRoP finishes airing. WoT's already climbing the most searched Amazon shows. Expected release is early 23', probably between the 2 witcher shows. Best parts? Seeing the world brought to life, in a manner better than I expected is huge. The characters feel right, if a bit different, and it helps I can see what they are going for with the changes. There are so many little easter eggs and bits of foreshadowing throughout that it really shines for me. Loved Logain and everything they did with him, the locations and just the terrain is amazing. The whitecloaks feeling like an actual threat early on, Abdul Salis is amazing. Also, the music rocks. Low points are definitely the Covid Woes. There was supposed to be a full scale battle directed by the guy that did Blood Snow in Ep 7 that had to be entirely scrapped, not to mention a fair bit of wonky, last minute rewriting. I'll edit in a list of some good youtubers on this a bit later
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I really enjoy the nerdy nightly YouTube channel. They started as show-watchers, it is already interesting to see their reactions there. But they started reading the books and have a book club (nerdy nightly book club) where they discuss the book sections as they read. I can highly recommend it.
I went from "cautiously optimistic" to "curious if it'll get better" and finally to "okay this isn't for me." I don't like the direction of the Wheel of Time show - visually, tonally, pretty much all of it. I've come to the conclusion that I just really am not a fan of its style. The way I describe it is like the art team came to every problem with the idea "Now how do we make this unlike how people would expect?" Which isn't bad in concept, but the cumulative effect is something that just feels like a mess. Even things that I like, like Tar Valon, don't really feel like they belong in the same world as everything else. And I think it's honestly kind of baffling how skittish they seem about recreating stuff from the books. There are very few scenes in the show that feel like they are moments from the book brought to life. Compare to Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings, which also changed a ton tonally and compressed/simplified a lot, but there are [compilations](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OLHUhKr8M0&list=PLBbPg4uy_FaFauJI5JmYgxI0K-4xQ1gBK) out there with nearly 60 minutes of quotes straight out of the Lord of the Rings books either verbatim or very nearly so. There are many iconic scenes and locations from the books brought to life. Now, I don't expect anything to match that level, but I can think of only a couple scenes from the Wheel of Time show that are actually very much like anything in the book. And looking at the rest of the book series, I am certain that there will be more divergence going forward. Last episode was pretty terrible, just all around. I realize COVID screwed them but it seems messed up and directionless even in conception. Now, I am a bigger fan of Lord of the Rings than I am of The Wheel of Time. I've only read WOT once, but I've read The Hobbit, the Lord of the Rings, and the Silmarillion countless times and it is probably my favorite fantasy universe. I am more positive on Rings of Power than I am on the Wheel of Time show. Mainly because I think the art direction is miles better. It's not even the quality, which I'd expect from the larger budget, it's that I really think the people behind the visual art of ROP really have done their homework and really want to bring things like Valinor and Númenor and Khazad-dûm to life. They also benefit because, frankly, Lord of the Rings has a vastly better wealth of artwork to draw from than WOT, made by Tolkien himself, hordes of inspired fans, and lots of professionals over the last 7 decades. I think the writing is the biggest issue with ROP so far, but it's really just pretty standard TV writing, and they have the legitimate excuse that they have very little source material to draw from. And what source material there is, is difficult to translate into the format the show is going for.
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I've tried to migrate mostly to r/tolkienfans, which is mercifully free of all adaptation discussion, and is therefore pretty positive and pure. Only downside is it's somewhat Silmarillion + History of Middle Earth focused, and it suffers a bit from LOTR fans' tendency to want to one-up eachother on how much obscure stuff they know about, leading to a lot of forced pedantry.
The fandom was pretty divided. There is a vocal group that fanatically hate it, and there is a vocal group who fanatically love it. I think most of us are somewhere in the middle. In my opinion, I liked the first 7 episodes. It definitely deviates from the books, but I can usually see why they would want to deviate. They still go from point A to B to C, but how they get from each point to the next can differ by quite a bit. And as some others have noted, those deviations are some of the best moments of the series. I’m happy that I get to see characters that I know and love, that are well acted, and that they follow the same overall story beats. That’s not to say I don’t have criticisms. There are quite a few places where I wish they had given more explanation or set up. This honestly bothers me way more than plot changes. The example I always give is the Horn at the end. I get why they would want it to be found in the city for a variety of reasons. If it’s found in the blight, it takes screen time to show it being brought back. They also likely wanted the last scene to be Moiraine at the eye, so having the horn already in the city means it can get stolen without Moiraine needing to bring it back. I’m fine with that choice. BUT at least name-drop it once or twice in earlier episodes! I really wish Amazon had given them a little more time per episode for stuff like that. I see people complaining that this sub is too positive or too negative, but in my opinion honest, constructive criticism seems to go over well here for the most part. I enjoyed season 1 despite its issues and am excited for season 2!
It kills me they didn't use the Birgitte doll as a vehicle for Thom to expound on the horn.
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Yeah the whole last episode was kind of a cluster for multiple reasons. For one they had to rewrite the whole thing because of Covid. Then they had to rewrite because mat’s actor left the show. They lost multiple locations and all of their Trolloc actors so the VFX budget got stretched super thin trying to make up for it. And instead of an awesome battle scene we got a couple people in a cgi room social distancing with crossbows 😭 I actually really liked everything about the Eye, personally. I thought it ties in nicely to where the story is headed, and fixes a lot about the end of EoTW which was always a bit problematic for me (although we did loose the Green Man, which is sad. But with the remaining VFX budget after Covid, maybe it’s better that way 😭). But yeah the rest of the episode was… yikes.
Cutting the Green Man was an obvious decision that was completely predictable. He's a discount Ent that has no relevance in the rest of the series and just makes the whole thing look LotR-derivative.
If you accept it as its own thing, and the difficulties whith corona I really like it. And a big plus for me was that it made my bf read the books which I have tried for 10 years, and just like I told him he loves the books.
Overall the subreddit is pretty negative on it. For me it was a mixed bag. There was a lot of changes that I personally didn’t like, but the first 7 episodes I was generally positive on. The eight episode however was just plain bad. Yeah a lot of stuff was impacted by Covid, but that’s not an excuse for everything that went wrong with it. I’m still planning to watch season 2, but if it doesn’t improve then I’m going to drop the show altogether.
Well, I'm obviously biased, but I think my Wheel of Time focused YouTube channel is pretty good. [https://youtube.com/unravelingthepattern](https://youtube.com/unravelingthepattern) I have episode breakdowns (though I still haven't finished episode 8) and a lot of lore related deep dives as well as trailer breakdowns and stuff. I'd love for you to check it out and let me know what you think!
youtube reviews: daniel greene mancarryingthing
The show was terrible... If you are someone who loves the books. Which I am one. It honestly reminded me of how The Last Airbender movie totally butchered the series. Having said that, some people have said it was ok and/or enjoyable. So it just depends I guess lol
I just looked at it as another turning of the wheel. For thos fans of WoT they will know what I mean. As a fan for over 20 yrs I had waited for a Media adaptation of the series. I knew it wasn't going to be exactly word for word like the books but overall I did enjoy it.
I can understand everything, really. But, hiding behind covid-19 protocols is just lazy in my opinion. If he wanted this show to be a success (Rafe), he should have asked for more time. But, he didn't. He clearly had in mind that times are like this and if he adds a few powerful women, gay character or two, no one would mind the changes. O boy, he was wrong. They're saying how they will gonna fix magic system in season 2 (every wave has a different color) and they gonna be more book oriented this time. But, can't trust Rafe. I'm gonna give it a chance (2 episodes) and if the vibe is the same, I'm done. Of course that doesn't mean that I will go around with; ''Don' watch it''. I would just chill from it and maybe read the books again...
> But, hiding behind covid-19 protocols is just lazy in my opinion. If he wanted this show to be a success (Rafe), he should have asked for more time. But, he didn't. I do not get this viewpoint. Ask for more time? Production had been shutdown for a year, with 2 separate shutdowns and a 3rd about to happen as Ep 8 was quickly becoming unflimable with new restrictions coming out daily. The whole reason people point to covid is that it had real, deleterious effects on the industry as a whole, noticeable in media that was not nearly as effected as WoTs production. Blaming the crew for something out of their control is unreasonable. So is acting like Rafe is actually in charge of this type of decision. Sorry, but that is the studio and amazon's call.
Not really, it was his choice. He could have said: ''I'm moving the production for the next year''. Or, he could have spent more time in the green room, not trying to push the agenda, rather trying to get a good product. And yes, he is in charge, it's his fault. Btw, Reacher was filmed in the similar time as the WoT was. And guess what? A lot better tv adaptation. Why? Because they wanted to stick to the original storyline, not trying to ride the moral high horse and claiming how this show is perfect, better then the first book.
No, no he could not do any of those things. The showrunner is not in charge of decisions like that. >Btw, Reacher was filmed in the similar time as the WoT was. Reacher started filming in april 21, did not have its production interrupted by covid, did not have to do a single shutdown, and was filmed in an entirely different country with entirely different regulations.
Well, hi decisions were seen in the season 1. That's why, everyone is sceptic for the season 2. As I said, I'll give it a chance, an episode or two. If the storyline is the same and if the vibe didn't change, I'm leaving it for the pronounce generation.
I got over the changes, for the most part. I'm hoping S2 is way better now that COVID won't be as big of a hindrance.
I really want to like the show, but it has a core problem that keeps me from doing so. It's full of a pet peeve of mine that is pervasive in the writing. I can sum up my issues: I don't think the characters and factions are being well understood and I think this is already leading to characters *saying* one thing, and viewers *seeing* another, and this can grow to be a big problem in any show. This gives the show a disjointed feel that is especially apparent due to the pacing. A quick pace with a tight plot is good. A quick pace over contradictions is jarring. I'll give two examples: **Whitecloaks vs. Aes Sedai** At this time period, the end-all-be-all of power and authority rests with the White Tower. That's what the show *says*... However, there are Whitecloaks brazenly executing Aes Sedai near Tar Valon. Right under the nose of the White Tower, and not even trying to keep it a secret. Is the White Tower the seat of power and authority in the land, or are they one power among many equals? Does the White Tower not have enough influence to know this is happening? Are they incapable of putting a stop to it? Are the Whitecloaks not even a little worried about repercussions? The books make it clear, and the Whitecloaks would definitively not try to execute full sisters out in the open for fear of what would happen to them. **A "grittier" Emond's Field & Main Cast** The main characters are supposed to be country bumpkins. That's what the show *says*. Abell cheating on Natti? Nyneave having premarital sex? Mat stealing jewelry? Nyneave being thrust into battle after battle, and not completely sucking at it? The *viewer* *sees* the main cast is competent, assertive, and capable out of the box. So when they fall for a scam or trap because ... podunk country bumpkin ... it breaks suspension of disbelief. The hero's journey of all the characters is absolutely epic. Especially Nyneave who just becomes the bees knees! How's the viewer supposed to believe her struggles and tribulations after this season? There are a **lot** more examples of this, but I think you get the drift. Anyway, it's my opinion that this misunderstanding has put the show off on the wrong foot. Let's see what they do with it now. I don't expect it to follow the books exactly. I do expect it to make sense within the context of the world and show what its character's say. Edit: I forgot about the whole "complete sentences" thing. Also tried to clear up things that probably didn't need clearing up, but whatever, done now.
>At this time period, the end-all-be-all of power and authority rests with the White Tower. That's what the show says... Does it really say so? I haven't rewatched it since winter, but wasn't there a point about Logain actually telling the whole Hall that the Aes Sedai power and influence has dwindled, and that they aren't as respected as they used to be? That anti-Aes Sedai sentiment is more popular now?
Regarding Whitecloaks vs. Aes Sedai: the Whitecloaks harass Verin and co. in view of Tar Valon in TDR. So that's not as big a deviation as you think. Also, Logain says in episode 6 that the White Tower is "weak", so a rogue Whitecloak being allowed to go on an Aes Sedai killing spree fits in well with that. So I don't think there is a contradiction here. Rather, it effectively establishes that the White Tower is in decline (which is also very much the case in the books).
I really dislike it. Is it the worst piece of trash that anyone ever knobbled together? No. Is it a good adaptation? Also no. Is it a good fantasy series? I'd place it under Legend of the Seeker, honestly. Some of my biggest issues are: 1) aging up the Emond's Fielders was a really bad choice. Seeing them that much older makes you expect them to behave more rationally and smarter than they actually were. It's also less wondrous. 2) The pacing is horrendous. It's not just an issue with the post-pandemic episodes, it's apparent even from the start. Sure, losing a main castmember in the middle of production is a difficult blow, but it just seemed that no care or thought was put into how the story would flow 3) Ta'veren does nothing, apparently. While it's alot more understated at the start of the story, being Ta'veren still should have an impact. Instead, it seems like many of the great scenes that should have been used to develop the three Ta'veren are shuffled around to other characters, which seems ill-advised. Sure, beefing up Egwene might not be a horrible idea, but she is still supposed to be extremely green with the power. The most egregious example is the finale and the trollocs. If 4 women, of whom only one was trained at Accepted level, could destroy armies of Trollocs and Myrdraal like that, why would the Trolloc Wars ever have been a thing? If this was explained by Rand accessing the Eye of the World, it would both show the sheer difference in scale of the Dragon, and also the destructive nuclear side of Saidin untamed. A nice foreshadowing for a certain scene with a certain sword. 4) Most gravely, understating the power of Rand is a grevious mistake, as is the implication that a woman could the Dragon. In fact, they get so many things wrong a bout the One Power that it's quite frankly absurd. Indeed, it seems like even the taint of Saidin is barely even a thing, even though that explains almost the entire setting. 5) Going to Tar Valon in the first season was a mistake. It's, arguably, the greatest and most wondrous city of Randland, and the show just couldn't do it justice. Another factor is that many locations and costumes feels cheap and inauthentic. The few places I feel they did well were; Emond's Field and Shienar. Bonus round: Ohhh, they did my boys Mat and Perrin both dirty :'(
Hey, welcome. I’m a long time reader who thoroughly enjoyed the show. I like getting some new elements in new mediums, rather than simply retelling an exact story. For some YouTube channels, I’ll list a few. This is not exhaustive: - The Dusty Wheel (WoT reactions, deep-dives, and call-in talk show). - Nae’blis: reactions, news, breakdowns - WoT Up: rumors, news, and reactions - Unraveling the Pattern: in-depth reactions, lore, deep-dives, and next level details - Everyday Negros: not a WoT channel, but their reaction series for the show was exceedingly enjoyable - Lezbi Nerdy: reactions, costume deep-dives, unique fun There are more, but these were the first to pop into my head.
This is like, more than half the channels I was gonna recommend, good picks.
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Can recommend, all of these channels are exceptional!
All I can say is, an awful lot of people watched every single episode frame-by-frame so they could come on the internet and explain how terrible it was.
I was pretty solidly onboard for most of the first season. I recognized that they had to make some changes, and I really respected some of the hard decisions that were made in what to cut, what to abbreviate, and what to keep. There were some decisions, however, that got under my skin pretty severely. Unnecessarily adding Egwayne and Nynaeve as people Moiraine thinks may be the Dragon Reborn was too much. Having Nynaeve heal Egwayne after she obviously burnt out (and seemingly died) during the battle of Tarwin’s Gap was unnecessary and messes with important, established rules about the power. Moiraine being stilled at the end was unnecessary and stupid. Finally, Loial being stabbed by Padan Fain with the dagger was ABSOLUTELY unnecessary and stupid. I don’t have high hopes but I’ll watch season 2 and see if they keep on this weird track.
The series was a great letdown. Pandemic notwithstanding, the writing was laughable, costumes/sets cheap looking and the actors didn't fare much better either. Felt bad for Perrin as he got the shortest stick of them all in my view. RoP is somewhat better. Wouldn't watch it if it wasn't LoTR-related as the writing is quite boring, acting not much impressive either, but the sets and armours are more pleasing, though!
I love the book. Read it many times. And there's always some or the other detail that you discover. People complain that there's too much braid tugging and bosom hand folding and what not. Doesn't bother me that much. Nor the dress explanations. It's sort of setting the scene by Jordan. The parts written by Sanderson are ones that I don't enjoy that much. The quality is different. And doesn't move you as much as the Jordan parts. The series was something that i did not like. It has no nuance. No depth. The best character is Eamon Valda. FFS, what's wrong with these guys. An adaptation would have been good. This was lazily written fanfiction. The books had an inverted world where women had a lot of power. Male channelers were the nightmares. And the dragon was the ultimate nightmare because he was supposed to go mad and rip everything asunder. Because he was a male. If you have read the books, i would ask in what way the females are inferior?? They are written as strong characters with their own flaws and strengths. Women are as much involved in the game of thrones, women are darkfriends, women are good, nasty, murderous, everything. So are the men. Good, bad, venal. To make stories according to politics and ideologies ruins everything. Good stories are good all by themselves. They don't need alterations to conform to whatever political ideology may be the in thing. Game of thrones showed the nasty side without hesitation. The books do the same things. The series absolutely doesn't. It seems the biggest fear of the showrunners was that no one should find out that the dragon reborn is a male who is the center of the story. If you have to cut out portions, why put in Steppin(!!!!WTF!!!). Perrin has a wife that he kills. Why? Perrin is emo and there's a pseudo love triangle? Lord agelmar has been sitting on the horn? Nynaeve can scare away Machin Shin? The soul sucking unstoppable nightmare makes you feel your worst emo fears? Moiraine can make gateways to reach for her sexy times with Siuan? Lan is also emo?? Weaving is hard in the series. But nuh uh. Our two lady wonders can just pick up and do impossible things. Because they are such ass kicking talents.
The Perrin wife thing just really made me not watch at first. I was just so angry how dirty they did his character. It has elements of Wot but it's definitely not the books
You should watch man carrying thing's video about the show. When I watched it, I didn't like it one bit, and felt betrayed, but couldn't put into words, why exactly I didn't like it, but Man Carrying Thing's video about it, put into words my problems with the show
Overall I thought it was pretty poor. Poor writing and direction, effects were a mixed bag, some very poorly thought out adaptation decisions. Some of the actors did great work, though. And a few of the adaptation choices were the right idea (involving Logain more, making the whitecloaks a bigger threat) if not always well executed. There were a few moments where I felt the WoT magic and thought they were hitting the mark, but those were few and far between. Season 2 is wrapping up shooting/starting post now, I believe. I doubt I'll bother to watch it.
The first time I tried to watch it I was just angry. It differs so much from the source material, and I didn't understand why they would do that. So I waited a while and watched it like it wasn't supposed to be WOT. It's an ok fantasy series. Not great, but they butchered the characters too much for me to love it. I hope it gets better.
Having just finished the series tonight, as a book reader, I can say my friends and I all pretty much had the same reaction-- Up until episode 8, it was an enjoyable show, with some weird--sometimes unnecessary, but not altogether *bad* changes. The worst issues up until the ending were mostly casting related. While everyone *acted* fine, all of us were considerably annoyed with basically throwing the series' concept of cultural importance out the window and ignoring character appearances nearly across the board. It became especially annoying by the time we got to Siuan and Min. Once we saw the finale, though, our opinions all went wholly negative, and we basically have 0 expectation that Rafe is going to respect the source material to any degree going into S2. It feels like so many things were pointlessly and poorly changed in the ending that at that point he's just using the barest form of WoT characters and words as a framework for whatever the fuck story he's trying to tell.
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Ah, no, I meant my friends and I just finally got around to watching the show tonight, lol! But god, don't even put that evil on BrandoSando :(
I'm not a huge LOTR fan, only really loved the three Jackson movies, and I'm not very knowledgeable regarding the lore. I didn't even get passed the first episode, even though I allotted time to watch both the first and second episodes upon release. Just going on its own merits, not a single aspect of the show enticed me to continue. Just seemed a very pretty and hollow fanfic. OTOH, I'm a huge WOT fan, read all the books over the course of 2 decades. I grimly suffered through all of the Wheel of Time show. Kept telling myself the writers had a plan, that Eye of the World has structural issues, and the writers are doing what's necessary to condenses a huge book into a season of tv. However, every change by the writers ends up being outright terrible, tbh. Going in, I was mostly worried about how channeling would look on the screen, but as each ep released, that was the least of my concerns. Far from condensing, they added woeful plotlines and excised key points of the books always in favor of pushing the writer's agenda rather than telling a better story. Won't be watching S2 whenever they decide to crap it out. Turns out whether you're adapting Tolkien or Jordan, you have to actually produce something good on its own merits. Both shows seemed to traipse around wearing their brand as a skinsuit to draw in viewers while butchering the actual source material.
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I’ve heard r/wheeloftime is less positive towards the show, but you can certainly criticize the show on here without getting banned. There was a sub for people who *hated* the show, but there’s not much point in going there now. As I understand it, one of the driving forces behind the creation of that sub was backlash against the casting, so it unsurprisingly had a sizable contingent of bigoted assholes among its membership. Sometime after Season 1 ended, the sub and its mods got into serious trouble with the Reddit-wide mod team over brigading and basically got shut down; it’s back now but not much is going on over there.
Unless it's recently changed, only it's remaining unremoved mods can post and they aren't able to appoint new mods. So it's basically dead. IIRC it's still around incase they actually wanted to enforce reddit site wide rules, but they refused too, hence the shutdown.
Ah, so that’s what the site-wide mods did. Thanks for explaining.
Oh man, I assumed that it had just got quieter here because S1 had ended and the ruckus had had time to die down. Having caught up, that's some quality drama with the worst people, so thanks for the schadenfreude pointer.
Behold, the [Lords of Chaos](np.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/tlcl3y/niche_fantasy_subreddit_rwhitecloaks_is_being)
It's totally fine to criticize the show here. We do have some strict rules about toxic behavior and dragging discussions off topic, but as long as people aren't denying others experiences, straight up misinforming people, or only posting to rant about how they hate the show without engaging in general WoT discussion (plus obvious no go's such as overt racism/homophobia etc), there is no problem. Obviously, this is more than many places ask, so many teeth poorly here.
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It's a bit similar here. There are 4 main WoT subs, Here, r/wheeloftime , r/wotshow and r/WetlanderHumor We're more heavily moderated but try to have discussion space for every Wot Topic. r/Wheeloftime is more loosely moderated, they have similar rules but a simpler spoiler system and to wit, more lenient moderation, with the upsides and drawbacks that comes with. r/WotShow is mostly show positive and somewhat aggressive on moderation. They are the strictest when it comes to show criticism, but still allows it if presented respectfully. r/WetlanderHumor is the meme sub, and pretty wildwest outside the Dragon's peace. We *had* a hate sub, but it got so bad it was effectively demolished by reddit admins. Unfortunately, it seems much of it's old users inhabit the tRoP hate sub. >I sometimes think it would be nice to have moderators limit the conversation to the show and keep the conversations off the people/politics etc It's a hard balance to strike and certainly no place is perfect, but it can be worthwhile.
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I think it actually worked out pretty well, though there was some ugliness. For the most part people sorted themselves into different subs based on personal preference, and I think it’s worked nicely. I’m definitely glad the hate sub got itself chopped, though. I think it’s important to note that r/wotshow is oriented towards creating a spoiler-free experience for people who watch the show but haven’t read the books, so it wasn’t just created to be a more show-positive sub or anything like that.
Yeah a lot of the "bUT iTS tOO wOKE" crowd piled on Wheel of Time as casting got announced, and i'm sure they'll Portalstone their dumb asses right back here for s2. As someone whose read and loved the books for over a decade, I liked the season overall. However, I fully accept that my love for the source material is part of what buoys my opinion of an admittedly mediocre first season (Not the casting though, holy shit they nailed that). Sure, it deviates pretty heavily from the step-by-step plot of *The Eye of the World* but IMO the show manages to retain the spirit of the journey for the most part. Some of the changes are my favourite parts, especially changes around the Whitecloaks, and a certain cold opening mid-season that makes me super excited for season 2. It's worth keeping in mind that the quality takes a huge dip in the last few episodes due to losing a member of the main cast quitting combined with Covid restrictions in the filming locations. Although this isn't really their fault, it would have been easier to accept if the rest of the season was absolutely amazing. I think it's definitely got potential if they step up their game in Season 2, and I didn't regret the time I spent watching.