Book to Show: Compare and Contrast

[Black Knight]

Readers, here is your place to speculate on how the show will adapt the books! Which characters and plotlines will be kept, and which will be dropped? Will all the actresses be directed to frequently cross their arms beneath their breasts? Spoilers and speculation ahoy!

[Black Knight]

I remember Alanna more from later books. But my guess is that they want to establish her - and more importantly, the relationship between her and her two Warders - very early so Rand's situation doesn't seem so male wish fulfillment fantasy (doubtless his will be tweaked in other ways to further reduce that).

[DoctorAtomic]

She's also the one 'Green'. I can probably remember only one from each, and she's kind of always around so I can get she would be cast now. I would guess Verin would be cast soon too. Even knowing what we know, she was always kind of there as the 'Brown'. 

With 50 billion characters that I couldn't even keep straight, it's going to be hard if you don't have one of each just like, "hi I'm Verin, I'll be in the library if you need me."

22 hours ago, Black Knight said:

But my guess is that they want to establish her - and more importantly, the relationship between her and her two Warders - very early so Rand's situation doesn't seem so male wish fulfillment fantasy (doubtless his will be tweaked in other ways to further reduce that).

I'm thinking that's going to be a challenge to get across. Even when I read the books, I was like, Elanye, come on. 

[Black Knight]

48 minutes ago, DoctorAtomic said:

I'm thinking that's going to be a challenge to get across. Even when I read the books, I was like, Elanye, come on. 

My assumption has been that Min won't be in the series (or if she is, she won't be involved with Rand - but she's really just kinda pointless then as her only other function is to have visions, and they can just give any key ones to another character), and that Elayne and Aviendha will be not only best friends but lovers. It all works just fine then.

[DoctorAtomic]

I don't know. I thought so before, but Min was kind of critical working with the old librarian guy in Carhein researching the 'wheel' for Rand, which kind of leads him to his solution with the bore and trapping Ish now that I think about it. 

I don't really see the need for Min and Rand to be together either, but taking her entirely out might be a misstep. She was involved with their adventures in the beginning and is really the only one who saw Rand 'grow up'. There's nothing wrong with them being friends because of that. I wouldn't want them to not be together and her pining for him. I'd rather she be given some agency and come up with the idea of the wheel and take the initiative to do the research. 

You'd be missing out on really good philosophical discussions with her not there. 

[Danny Franks]

23 hours ago, Black Knight said:

My assumption has been that Min won't be in the series (or if she is, she won't be involved with Rand - but she's really just kinda pointless then as her only other function is to have visions, and they can just give any key ones to another character), and that Elayne and Aviendha will be not only best friends but lovers. It all works just fine then.

I think she's going to be in the show. A lot of people believe Aviendha and Elayne will have a relationship, because of the bond they form in the books, but I tend to think it won't go down like that (should the show ever get far enough through the books).

My money is on Min and Elayne having a relationship of sorts in the White Tower, either before they meet Rand or afterwards. Jordan clearly quite liked the 'girls experimenting in boarding school' trope, as it pops up several times in the series, so it would make sense to use it more explicitly with more important characters.

While I don't expect it to happen, I do think Min is the one of the three who can be most easily removed without affecting the overall plot. A lot of her beats can be given to other characters - her visions could be rolled into Egwene's Dreaming, her philosophical observations could be given to anyone, and she's not really needed at all for White Tower rebellion plot. 

[DoctorAtomic]

That's true. I do think Min is kind of the regular person in a sense. You've got basically all the 'elite' people making decisions for the world. 

Nothing against Elayne, but she's total privilege. I'll kind of give you Ew in that she was a 'village girl' that rose to power, but she's still elite and was making decisions primarily for the Tower and not for the people where she grew up. 

I liked the old channeling ladies because there was none of that. 

So even with the visions, Min is kind of there in a sense to remind readers/viewers that there's actual people in this world. 

That's the problem I had with the end. I thought it completely missed the mark. It wasn't the end of an Age. It was just a big battle. Rand should have ended channeling for good. 

1 hour ago, Danny Franks said:

Jordan clearly quite liked the 'girls experimenting in boarding school' trope, as it pops up several times in the series, so it would make sense to use it more explicitly with more important characters.

I kind of didn't pick up on that until I got into online discussions. I'm hoping they can deal with all the teenage boy fantasy bullshit that doesn't turn off everyone. 

To be fair, there's a ton that could and should be cut out.

[Atlanta]

The whole 'sister wife' thing creeped me out. Min could be condensed with a composite character. Perhaps another character can have visions.

[DoctorAtomic]

Composite of whom? She's kind of on her own a lot. 

[Atlanta]

They could incorporate her 'sight' with another character.

[DoctorAtomic]

I was asking which ones could be combined. 

[Atlanta]

Maybe give it to Elayne or Suan. Or maybe give it to someone like Tom; that would be really interesting. 

[DoctorAtomic]

I don't know if it's best to combine with another major character. Thom's been around 'important people' his whole life, so I could see him having visions. 

One thing I don't want to lose is the whole philosophical research into the wheel. I actually hope they go deeper into it. I do think it's critical knowledge for Rand to seal the bore. 

I figure they have to lose some though. They did that on the Tudors and those were actual people. There's like more people in the Aiel than in China. 

[Jalyn]

From https://www.tor.com/2020/03/23/23-things-we-learned-from-rafe-judkins-wheel-of-time-instagram-qa/:

 Min, Elayne, and Aviendha will NOT be merged into one character. “I’m not going to combine huge characters like that,” Judkins added. “Maybe sometimes a minor character folded into a major one to make better use of our cast but nothing nutso.” As for whether Min and Elayne will show up in season 1, Judkins replied “TWWaTWW,” which is short for “The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills” and appears to be Judkin’s version of Robert Jordan’s famous non-answer “RAFO” (Read And Find Out).

In another post, however, Judkins confirmed that Min is in season 1.

[DoctorAtomic]

Combining all them would be way too much. 

[Black Knight]

12 hours ago, DoctorAtomic said:

One thing I don't want to lose is the whole philosophical research into the wheel. I actually hope they go deeper into it. I do think it's critical knowledge for Rand to seal the bore. 

Far from going deeper into it, I expect it to be condensed. It's the sort of thing that works fine in a book, but is far harder in a visual medium. And there are so many characters and storylines to service.

[Danny Franks]

On 5/25/2020 at 3:41 AM, Atlanta said:

They could incorporate her 'sight' with another character.

 

On 5/25/2020 at 3:48 AM, DoctorAtomic said:

I was asking which ones could be combined. 

Min's viewings could easily be given to Egwene as part of her Dreaming. There's some overlap there, and Min's unique ability just seems out of place anyway. I don't know if Jordan originally intended to explore it more, but it's just... there without any explanation.

And most of Min's actual story stuff is actually just her being a POV character for the White Tower Rebellion and the escape. In a TV show, you don't need that POV character. They could have Gawyn's unhappiness with Suian's treatment be a reason for him to bust Suian and Leane out of prison, instead of Min doing it.

And when it comes to Rand, her role in the later books honestly isn't that integral. She sits around and "reminds him that he's human" which... doesn't work at all. Essentially she just observes and enables his continuing descent to darkness and his eventual epiphany has nothing to do with her at all.

The philosophy stuff is easy - just have the philosopher explain what he figured out instead of him being killed then Min taking over.

However, it seems clear they won't do any of that, which is also fine.

What I would do to modernise the relationship dynamics is to have Min and Elayne be together in the White Tower, while both are also kind of interested in Rand. Instead of having the women just focused on him, have them focus on each other too. 

Rand and Aviendha have the most traditional 'romance developing' storyline of the group, so that could be relatively unchanged. But Aviendha's cultural acceptance of polyamory could be used as the solution to the issues of jealousy and confusion that Min and Elayne feel over their own relationship and their feelings for Rand.

Edited May 30, 2020 by Danny Franks

[Atlanta]

Danny Franks, I agree with your assessment of needing Min or not. Min is a very side character when you think about it and good point about Egwene having sight as part of her skills as a dream walker. It wouldn't work for Nynaeve to have it since she's too much mother hen.

[DoctorAtomic]

You don't necessarily need the visions at all per se, if we're going that far. 

[SVNBob]

Since this adaptation is into a visual medium, I'm expecting us to get glimpses of "Min-vision".  As in, we'll occasionally be shown the symbols as if we're seeing through Min's eyes.  We'll definitely see the ones around the core players.

That means we might also get occasional ta'veren "rainbow flashes" from Rand, Mat, and/or Perrin about one of the other two.

[DoctorAtomic]

I'm really hoping they do something interesting with channeling. It could be a good sight gag too with two of them all sweaty and concentrating really hard and Mat just looking at nothing saying, 'bloody women!'

[DoctorAtomic]

20 hours ago, Danny Franks said:

I know GRRM has been very upfront about how much of an influence Robert Jordan was, but Rowling certainly hasn't.

I don't care for Rowling, so whatever, but I don't have a problem with GRRM. Him and Jordan were contemporaries. They're going to be influences. I don't see it a big deal. It's not like the 'reincarnated jesus person who does magic' is a completely new concept. 

20 hours ago, Anduin said:

My biggest concern, from what little I've read, the women feel... odd. Not in any way I can place, but odd nonetheless. I want them to feel normal, if that makes any sense.

This is a huge hurdle because you're going to have the AS come off as shrew bitches if you're not careful. They should really play up Suian and Moraine as actual friends who liked to joke around. Also, no spankings ffs. 

18 hours ago, Danny Franks said:

I tend to focus on the fact that Jordan was writing a world where an order of magic-wielding women have effectively ruled for three thousand years, and the members of that order have a tendency to throw their weight around whenever it suits them. That seems to be realistic to me. It doesn't mean Jordan always succeeded in writing them well, but I don't think it's anywhere near as bad as some people insist.

I don't know if I'd say successfully. I'm sure many of male channelers would have words. Throwing their weight around is different than being pushy bitches, but there's a fine line that is going to take good directors and actors to play that. Some are just terrible people. You need to show more Moriane and Lan alone together that maybe isn't in the book to start because she's just ice cold for most of Eye of the World. 

[Danny Franks]

40 minutes ago, DoctorAtomic said:

I don't care for Rowling, so whatever, but I don't have a problem with GRRM. Him and Jordan were contemporaries. They're going to be influences. I don't see it a big deal. It's not like the 'reincarnated jesus person who does magic' is a completely new concept. 

I don't have a problem with GRRM either. He's clearly a fan of Jordan, and wrote in a minor character as an homage to him - a Maester who believed that time was a wheel.

40 minutes ago, DoctorAtomic said:

I don't know if I'd say successfully. I'm sure many of male channelers would have words. Throwing their weight around is different than being pushy bitches, but there's a fine line that is going to take good directors and actors to play that. Some are just terrible people. You need to show more Moriane and Lan alone together that maybe isn't in the book to start because she's just ice cold for most of Eye of the World. 

The Aes Sedai are essentially Randland's Catholic Church in the Middle Ages - they sit apart from every nation yet wield huge influence over them all. Them being pushy and dictatorial is the result of three thousand years of their monopoly on wielding the One Power and being seen as figureheads of the war against the Shadow.

Like the Catholic Church, some where genuinely good people, some weren't. Some were deep thinkers, ready to revolutionise thinking, others were dogmatic and inflexible.

Regarding Moiraine and Lan, I think they're going to show parts of New Spring, which features a younger, less confident Moiraine and a Lan who is a lot more... wild. And I think we're going to see Moiraine less as she's seen by the Emond's Fielders, so she should be less cold and remote.

I also suspect the show will explore Moiraine's relationship with Siuan more intimately than the books did.

[DoctorAtomic]

3 minutes ago, Danny Franks said:

Regarding Moiraine and Lan, I think they're going to show parts of New Spring, which features a younger, less confident Moiraine and a Lan who is a lot more... wild. And I think we're going to see Moiraine less as she's seen by the Emond's Fielders, so she should be less cold and remote.

I didn't know any of that, but it's a smart narrative choice. 

I don't know what the opening scene is going to be, but they probably should get to Suian and Moraine present at the foretelling of Rand being born sooner than later. That might help too. 

[Black Knight]

One thing I've been thinking about in regards to Moiraine is, the show has cast a name actress, a busy one, in Rosamund Pike. She is not the kind of actress where they can have her offscreen for multiple seasons and expect her to be available when they need her again.

Obviously the show will be compressed from the books, there won't be 14 seasons, but just how compressed is it going to be? Moiraine "dies" in the fifth book and is gone for many books before she returns. That's not going to work with Rosamund Pike unless the books are insanely compressed, and yes, the middle volumes have a ridiculous amount of filler, but still, not enough for what we're talking about.

It seems to me there are really only two ways the show can go: Either they keep Moiraine onscreen by letting the audience know quickly that she isn't really dead, and show what happens to her after she goes through the ter'angreal, or when she "dies" she really is most sincerely dead and isn't part of the series endgame.

[DearEvette]

20 minutes ago, Black Knight said:

One thing I've been thinking about in regards to Moiraine is, the show has cast a name actress, a busy one, in Rosamund Pike. She is not the kind of actress where they can have her offscreen for multiple seasons and expect her to be available when they need her again.

I wondered about that.  Outside of Sophie Okonedo, she is the biggest name cast. But for the life of me outside of Gone Girl (which came out years ago) and the most recent Netflix movie, I couldn't recall anything she's been in.  I went to look at her IMDB and since Gone Girl she looks to have done mostly obscure movies and animated tv series voice work.  She is most definitely busy but this feels like the most high profile thing she's done since Gone Girl.

[Danny Franks]

16 hours ago, DoctorAtomic said:

I didn't know any of that, but it's a smart narrative choice. 

I don't know what the opening scene is going to be, but they probably should get to Suian and Moraine present at the foretelling of Rand being born sooner than later. That might help too. 

I read somewhere that they've cast a young Siuan, so that probably means they've cast a young Moiraine as well. I think they'll still use Rosamund Pike for the prequel scenes, but they might be planning to use the younger actors for the foretelling scene. 

Thinking about it, that would be a cool prologue - scenes of the battle outside Tar Valon, cut to these two novices in the White Tower being told to stop watching from the Tower and attend Gitara Sedai, more battle scenes, the cry of a baby and then the foretelling.

Rather than the book prologue (which was already filmed in that cheap, cash grab attempt to keep the rights to the books) just have the bit about "the Dragon is reborn" and leave what that means as a mystery that's told through the first season.

10 hours ago, Black Knight said:

One thing I've been thinking about in regards to Moiraine is, the show has cast a name actress, a busy one, in Rosamund Pike. She is not the kind of actress where they can have her offscreen for multiple seasons and expect her to be available when they need her again.

Obviously the show will be compressed from the books, there won't be 14 seasons, but just how compressed is it going to be? Moiraine "dies" in the fifth book and is gone for many books before she returns. That's not going to work with Rosamund Pike unless the books are insanely compressed, and yes, the middle volumes have a ridiculous amount of filler, but still, not enough for what we're talking about.

It seems to me there are really only two ways the show can go: Either they keep Moiraine onscreen by letting the audience know quickly that she isn't really dead, and show what happens to her after she goes through the ter'angreal, or when she "dies" she really is most sincerely dead and isn't part of the series endgame.

They absolutely have to keep Moiraine's 'death' scene, in my view. It's such a great piece of writing and it imbues everything her character did since Rhuidean with so much poignancy and meaning. But I do think it's possible the writers might choose to actually have her die. Moiraine doesn't really do that much when she comes back, other than to give Rand a bit more confidence, and Mat's trip to the Tower of Ghenjei could be omitted or be for a different reason.

[DoctorAtomic]

They could film those future scenes simultaneously anyway. 

I do think Moraine is important to sealing the bore because Rand wouldn't have trusted anyone but her and Nye to use the glass sword. 

Also only those two would have gone along with such a bonkers plan anyway. 

[Black Knight]

No, I don't think they could. It's not like How You Met Your Mother, where it was just the two kid actors for one simple scene in the series finale. This would be multiple scenes spanning multiple episodes, including some very climactic endgame ones involving sealing the bore, with quite a few characters, all years before those scenes would air, if they ever actually air - since there's no guarantee WoT will actually get to series completion.

I agree Moiraine's "death" has to be kept. There isn't really any other good way to remove her from the picture at that point in time, anyway, and she has to be removed for the sake of Rand's journey. And it's the closest thing WoT has in the early books to GoT Sean Bean/Ned Stark.

They may keep it open in their minds given the long amount of time between Moiraine's "death" and her return. Perhaps their plan is to, when they near the final season, check in with Pike to see if she's available and willing, and if she is, write the Moiraine stuff in, and if she isn't, then Moiraine really is dead.

Or if they don't want to have Pike going offscreen for the interim seasons and also want to ensure she's there for the final season, they may plan to show the audience relatively soon after the "death" episode that Moiraine survived, and then show us each season what's happening with her up to the point Mat finds her. It'd require making up story, but if they want to, they can do that.

[Danny Franks]

21 hours ago, DoctorAtomic said:

I do think Moraine is important to sealing the bore because Rand wouldn't have trusted anyone but her and Nye to use the glass sword. 

Also only those two would have gone along with such a bonkers plan anyway. 

I think they could sub Aviendha into that role and just drop the stuff with her fighting Graendal and having to kill Rhuarc. The Last Battle is so packed that (should the show ever get there) they'll have to make swingeing cuts anyway.

12 hours ago, Black Knight said:

I agree Moiraine's "death" has to be kept. There isn't really any other good way to remove her from the picture at that point in time, anyway, and she has to be removed for the sake of Rand's journey. And it's the closest thing WoT has in the early books to GoT Sean Bean/Ned Stark.

They may keep it open in their minds given the long amount of time between Moiraine's "death" and her return. Perhaps their plan is to, when they near the final season, check in with Pike to see if she's available and willing, and if she is, write the Moiraine stuff in, and if she isn't, then Moiraine really is dead.

Or if they don't want to have Pike going offscreen for the interim seasons and also want to ensure she's there for the final season, they may plan to show the audience relatively soon after the "death" episode that Moiraine survived, and then show us each season what's happening with her up to the point Mat finds her. It'd require making up story, but if they want to, they can do that.

I'm not a fan of showing Moiraine as alive after her "death." I think it would rob it of its impact and I was never too interested in the whole Snakes and Foxes thread anyway.

They might be able to get an agreement with Rosamund Pike that she'll return whenever the final season is shot, because they could just say, 'we won't need you for three years but if you could avoid any heavy commitments in between these two dates, we should be able to work something out.'

That scene always worked so well for me in the books, because everyone is so focused on Caemlyn and the planned attack, except for Moiraine who has prepared everything for what she knows is going to happen. Lanfear's attack is such a shock and the first true look we have at how fucking insane she is after she's spent two books playing relatively nice (for a Forsaken, anyway). 

Then you get the scene with Rand and Sulin where he finally accepts that the Maidens can die for him, and then his conversation with Lan. If the show ever manages to get this onto the screen, I'll be so happy.

[DoctorAtomic]

Doesn't Rand use balefire for the first time when Moraine slams Lanfear through the door? I do want to see that weave. It's got to be a Big Deal. 

As much as I am a Mat fan, for tv getting rid of the whole Snakes is probably necessary. It's not like he doesn't have anything to do. You still need to Odin Mat up though so he can invent magic tank warfare. 

I suppose you could still use Av at the end with the Bore because she's certainly strong enough, but she's not really as forward thinking as Mo, and really being there at the end was literally her life purpose since the Foretelling. 

[Danny Franks]

2 hours ago, DoctorAtomic said:

Doesn't Rand use balefire for the first time when Moraine slams Lanfear through the door? I do want to see that weave. It's got to be a Big Deal. 

I think he uses balefire for the first time to kill the Darkhounds that attack Mat in Rhuidean. Moiraine warns him he mustn't ever use it but he says 'eh, I will if I need to'. He then uses it again on Rahvin in Caemlyn (restoring/saving Mat's life on both occasions).

Moiraine is the first character to use it, when she kills the Darkhounds that are pursuing her group when they leave Illian. That should be a good time to build up the tension and then just flood the screen with this blinding, searing light.

2 hours ago, DoctorAtomic said:

As much as I am a Mat fan, for tv getting rid of the whole Snakes is probably necessary. It's not like he doesn't have anything to do. You still need to Odin Mat up though so he can invent magic tank warfare. 

I still think that Min's magic is going to be confusing in the show, with it not being the One Power and just being unexplained. Then when you see that the Snakes use the same magic - Mat notices that they seem to be looking at things they see around his head when they're answering his questions - it gets even more confusing.

[DoctorAtomic]

7 hours ago, Danny Franks said:

He then uses it again on Rahvin in Caemlyn (restoring/saving Mat's life on both occasions).

I was thinking of this. It was a really big one. It's actually a bigger payoff. The first one could be like, 'he didn't knew what he was doing, this was just showing that Rand was legit.'

Rahvin was more a deliberate, taking earrings off, oh I'm so over with this now. 

But, no way, balefire needs to be some Matrix camera span swoosh, making lightsabers look like sparklers deal. 

[Black Knight]

On 5/22/2021 at 6:37 AM, Danny Franks said:

I'm not a fan of showing Moiraine as alive after her "death." I think it would rob it of its impact and I was never too interested in the whole Snakes and Foxes thread anyway.

See, I don't think that's a big deal because while her "death" scenes had a huge emotional impact on me, it became obvious to me shortly afterwards that Moiraine wasn't dead and was going to return. First, no body. Second, it'd left an unfinished subplot with Thom. Third and the absolute capper, there was a prophetic vision of Thom plucking Moiraine's jewel out of a fire. But even if they leave the vision out, TV viewers at this point are savvy enough to know that no body likely means the character isn't dead.

The only thing that was a surprise for me in respect to Moiraine's return was that it took so many books for it to happen (but then at the time, I hadn't been expecting the series to devolve into multiple filler volumes where absolutely Nothing Happened, before the fandom rebelled and let Jordan and Tor know in no uncertain terms that shit needed to stop). And I was involved with the WoT online fandom back in the day, so I know that her return was something that other readers also knew very early on was going to happen. It was spoken of as a certainty in all speculative theories. The TV show really would not be giving anything away by just showing her alive fairly soon after the "death" episode.

Quote

They might be able to get an agreement with Rosamund Pike that she'll return whenever the final season is shot, because they could just say, 'we won't need you for three years but if you could avoid any heavy commitments in between these two dates, we should be able to work something out.'

No actor agrees to that. If they absolutely want to bring Moiraine back for the endgame they have to keep Pike on contract for the duration of the series. And if they keep her on contract, that means they will use her, because Amazon would never agree to pay her to literally not appear for however many seasons before the final season just so that they have her first position for year whenever. It's even more unlikely since they really have no idea what year they'd be shooting the final season: They don't know how many seasons they ultimately will be allotted from Amazon to tell the story (just because they have a plan for X seasons does not mean Amazon will agree to X seasons, or if it's a huge hit they may be told to have more seasons than their plan), and they don't know if something could delay shooting again.

[Danny Franks]

On 5/24/2021 at 3:24 AM, Black Knight said:

See, I don't think that's a big deal because while her "death" scenes had a huge emotional impact on me, it became obvious to me shortly afterwards that Moiraine wasn't dead and was going to return. First, no body. Second, it'd left an unfinished subplot with Thom. Third and the absolute capper, there was a prophetic vision of Thom plucking Moiraine's jewel out of a fire. But even if they leave the vision out, TV viewers at this point are savvy enough to know that no body likely means the character isn't dead.

Well I'd happily cut all of that and have Moiraine actually be dead. 

For one, it's an incredibly powerful scene and I don't think that, just because the reader knew from prophecies that Moiraine would be back, the show should undercut Rand and Egwene and Lan's reactions to it by showing she's still alive an episode or two later.

Two, I can happily forget everything about the Thom subplot, which might have felt worth it if Jordan had finished the books, but was a big old shrug of nothing in the Sanderson-written books. It just didn't matter. And for me, a reader who never really cared much about Thom, I was never convinced that Moiraine was interested in him, or that she would be interested in him.

They're going to have to cut a lot to put this series on screen, and the Tower of Ghenjei storyline would be near the top of my list of excisions. Along with, as I've said before, the Prophet and any mention of the Shaido after Dumai's Wells.

I'd also cut the Seafolk out because their Coramoor prophecy never really amounts to much. I don't know for sure, but I wonder if this is something Jordan was saving for the follow up series he planned to write - that would focus on Mat, Tuon and the Seanchan but still include the other characters. There are the Wise One dreams about Rand on a boat surrounded by three women which never really came to pass, and I figured the Seafolk would factor in to post-Last Battle dealings with the Seanchan.

[DoctorAtomic]

3 hours ago, Danny Franks said:

They're going to have to cut a lot to put this series on screen, and the Tower of Ghenjei storyline would be near the top of my list of excisions. Along with, as I've said before, the Prophet and any mention of the Shaido after Dumai's Wells.

As much as I like the whole weirdness of it, I agree to cut the Tower, but Mat still needs to be Odin-ed up somehow, but I don't see (see what I did there) that it would be hard to do that. But that absolutely has to happen. Same with Rand losing the hand. 

I'd actually keep the Prophet and lose the Whitecloaks. 

We're all really from the pov of 'the good guys and ladies', as readers, and we know Rand is the actual Dragon, but is someone from Ebu Dar going to care? He pulled a sword out of what? Who cares? So I think you need that element to show what a pain it is for our heroes to actually get something done because the shadow is coming, whether they believe it or not. 

I don't want to compare to GOT too much, but it's like no one believing there's anything behind the Wall and then oops, the zombie dragon took care of that. I think you need that in the show, but not the fifty million factions. I think you need it for a time with the Aiel, but they get in line quick. 

I'm on the fence about the Sea Folk. I'm not going to cry if they're cut, but they're interesting. I guess it depends on how much history they get into, re - Hawkwing. They could do some cool flashback histories. 

Plus Rand legit earns the heron by beating the Sea Folk guy, and that was really cool. 

Edited May 25, 2021 by DoctorAtomic

[Jalyn]

19 minutes ago, DoctorAtomic said:

I'm on the fence about the Sea Folk. I'm not going to cry if they're cut, but they're interesting. I guess it depends on how much history they get into, re - Hawkwing. They could do some cool flashback histories. 

Plus Rand legit earns the heron by beating the Sea Folk guy, and that was really cool. 

That's all the Seanchan. The Sea Folk deal more with the Elayne/Nyn due to the BoW and the agreement that's made to use it together. 

[DoctorAtomic]

Wow I'm way off. I didn't really re read after Rhudien because most of the series is exhausting.

The bowl of the winds is fairly important, but I can agree cutting the Sea Folk. 

I do think it's important that all the cultures have a different Dragon prophecy, and everyone is basically meh that it's Rand. That always cracked me up. 

[DoctorAtomic]

It's not like Foresaken wouldn't work at cross purposes though. They're all vying for Naeblis. 

Overall, though, iirc, whatever Demandred was doing was in some completely separate land and in some short story that doesn't seem to exist. 

I mean, they could put that in the show. 

Aginor ain't much of nothing anyway. They could off him. 

[Jalyn]

I wouldn't be at all surprised if they cut down on the number of foresaken in the first place. Some of them are pretty useless and just there to give us a mid-level boss fight to end the book in the first half of the series.

I'm fine with changes for an adaptation. This series was already going to be really hard to bring to screen just because it is so massive. While I absolutely love things like "the random dark friend that Rand punches in the nose on the way to Camlyn is the same one that is conspiring with Morgause before being randomly executed." There's not really a way to do things like that in a TV show. 

Besides, it has a built in explanation for changes - we're looking at a different turning of the wheel. (Of course, the Dark Tower

had the exact same built in explanation and they totally screwed that up.

The Demandred/Taim thing would kind of annoy me just because I had gotten so sick of people arguing it on message boards before Winter's Heart was released. It feels a bit like rewarding people that had gotten to strident with their pet theory. Other than that, I don't actually care.

The spec that Perrin is going to be married at the start of the series and lose her in the Winter Night battle drives me nuts for multiple reasons. A) Randomly fridging a non-canon character? Why? B) Unless they cut the Faile storyline entirely, that relationship is going to feel very weird if he starts the series mourning some other woman. I can understand that some people would LOVE for the Faile storyline to disappear, but it sure cuts alot of what Perrin has to do. C) I think I've heard that they are aging up the characters a bit, which is fine, but they still need to be maturing into who they will become. Having Perrin already married just indicates a higher maturity level than I would expect or want for these characters.

[DoctorAtomic]

I thought Demandred/Taim was the original treatment, but Jordan changed it because everyone figured it out. 

I actually like to keep the Foresaken because they kind of cracked me up, but it is precisely because it's a boss fight. Rand isn't going to level up enough to unBore the Bore or whatever you want to call what he did at the end, without real sadain fights. Same with the ladies. It's important to show that these 'kids' are going toe to toe with Foresaken, so the end of the age is actually real and the dark side has to take that seriously. 

[Jalyn]

There are notes that show that at one point in time, Jordan planned on Taim being Demandred. There is no indication, to my knowledge, of when he changed his mind. I've always felt that it was before LoC was released (for the two Foresaken in the same place issue that I mentioned above) and that he left in some of the hints as red herrings. 

I don't disagree that the Foresaken were a great training ground for all of the kids. It's just that lots of stuff needs to be cut to make this work. I'm proactively trying to be ok with most of them. 

[DoctorAtomic]

Oh, I totally want to see whole swaths cut out. It's hard to cut out a lot of Foresaken though because they're so pivotal. 

The only one you really need reincarnated is Ish. You need Aginor?, whomever Rand kills at the Eye. Does he need to be reincarnated? Probably not. You need Sammael because of Lord Brend. I think you need Demandred because he's supposed to be the second to Lews Therin, and you probably need one of them in the Black Tower. I think it's better if it's him because I always thought for such a prideful person, him being off doing whatever and not basically mocking Rand to his face everyday seemed weak. He's got to be there at the end for Lan. You can't cut that out.

You need Lanfear for the door. It's important for Rand for Moiraine to be out of the picture. You need the one that they shield that ends up training Rand. And the one that burns Rand's hand off. You need the Spider because that's huge development for Ny. 

There's one that starts with B that I'm forgetting, so he probably doesn't need to be there. I think the whole Morgase compulsion plot could be cut, but you need a really big scene where Rand is totally terrorized that he figures out how to balefire. So if you cut that you can cut Rahvin. 

I can't remember any of the rest. Oh, wasn't there one that was always horny? Did she do anything? 

I'd rather they cut out tons of stuff and leave the Foresaken in because it's like, everywhere these people go, it's crawling with Foresaken. They're always a couple of steps ahead. Beating them is really earned and good growth for the heros. 

I always thought the reincarnation was kind of a cheat anyway, and I don't know if it flies for a tv audience. If they're continually coming back, then why bother fighting? Then that makes bringing back Ish so much more impactful. 

[quarks]

So, Moiraine!

On the one hand, I'm delighted that the show has confirmed that Moiraine is bisexual. On the other hand, I'm already seeing some problems:

1. This has been confirmed so subtly that over on the episode threads, at least one viewer doesn't think that any main cast members will be queer at all.

Now, in retrospect, I can see that the bath scene in the first episode - where Moiraine and Lan were fully platonic, in direct contrast to non-platonic Rand/Egwene and Perrin/Laila - was probably meant to start laying the groundwork for the eventual OMG Moiraine is queer! reveal. But ALSO in retrospect, since I initially assumed the show was just going to go with Moiraine/Thom and not bring up Moiraine/Siuan at all, I kinda feel that since they are moving in this direction, they needed one or two extra moments in the first episode to establish that.

2. Also, this probably confirms that the first main character confirmed to be canonically queer will also the first main character to die, which, not great, especially if -

3. They stick with the book endings for Moiraine, Thom and Siuan. 

Overall, though, I'm pretty pleased with the changes made to the books so far.

[SueB]

Bottom Line for the TL;DR:  I’m okay with the adaptation.  A few things are better, some less awesome, mostly it makes sense. See summary in bold  

 

Having just recently completed full re-read of the books (via audible binge-style ) - I caught a LOT of things that I had forgotten or perhaps skimmed when reading. I find I really insist on hearing every line in Audible.

But binge-style for me allows me to see bigger arcs more clearly from my perspective.  

Shortcuts and changes IMO are a ‘given’

Works (thus far):

S1 E1:

Sex happens to our main characters (mostly) before the series even starts - the jury is out with Nynave. I’m okay with it.  Jordan was over concerned about this and it’s Amazon Prime not broadcast. 

Perrin was married and accidentally killed his wife   Still not 100% on this but I understand it.  There was some trouble with the marriage too (Had she had a miscarriage? She touched her stomach a lot).  They sold the bloodlust well   And one could argue the bloodlust was ALWAYS part of Perrin, just exacerbated by the wolves.   So I see the shortcut they went for.

S1 Ep2:

Shortened the trip to Shasta Logoth: okay  we can meet Min later.

S1 Ep3

Meeting Thom later: again okay.  And I like that the Darkfriend meeting is likely to drive Mat to go on.   
 

Works really well:

S1Ep1:

Edmund 5’s characterization. They felt right.   Mat was a bit more of a scoundrel and his family was trash (mmmkay) but I could see the book dialog coming out of their mouths  

Egwene/Rand coming to closure early.  Nicely done.  And the intimacy of their relationship serves future plots well.

Trollocs  and Myrdralls are suitably horrifying and hard to kill.  Again, not for broadcast bad guys works well.

Moraine’s use of the One Power. Snazzy special effects.

S1Ep2:

Whitecloaks are a more credible threat   

Shadar Logoth’s SFx

Perrin meets the wolves  

S1Ep3:

Nynave/Lan relationship has sparks flying  

Egwene learning One Power

Not loving:

S1, Ep 1-3

Red Sisters - Too much like The Legend of the Seeker bad gals.  Campy IMO.

The rings - too gaudy for me. Makes them distinct but ‘meh’  

The Jury is out

S1 EP1-3

FOUR Taverne?   I think a case could be made that Egwene was Taverne but it’s not cannon.   I can live with it thus far.  

Aes Sedei relationships/power.  Not keen on how easy one was killed by a white cloak

Where is Nynave’s wilder power?  I want to see that.     

 

Summary: Excellent start. Book difference don’t bug me thus far. Characterization is spot on.  And the R-rated SFx is a good add.  
 

 

Edited November 19, 2021 by SueB
Highlighting

[quarks]

2 hours ago, SueB said:

Aes Sedei relationships/power.  Not keen on how easy one was killed by a white cloak

 

Yeah. I'm assuming that the Whitecloaks have access to the drug that temporarily removes the ability to reach the One Power, but that's a huge switch from the books, and something that would and should have massively changed certain power dynamics.

[Black Knight]

Getting access to the drug could be such a recent development that there hasn't been the chance for power dynamics to shift in reaction yet.

They may have done it to make encounters Moiraine and other Aes Sedai have in the earliest seasons more suspenseful for non-readers.

[MissL]

I’ve only read the first book and after skimming this thread I’m a little nervous I’m going to be spoiled for the rest in here but wow it felt like a lot was changed in the first episode. Perrin married? Moraine walking around basically announcing she is Aes sedai? (Sorry spelling) Rand and Egwene hooking up? All of them are considered to be possible dragons not just the boys? I thought the fear of the dragon was that he’d be a male that touched the source? 
 

Trollocs were how I imagined them though.

[munchiewoman]

I started reading the series back in 1993, and reread each book every time a new one came out, so I know the early books the best.  I've been really looking forward to this, and though some things disappoint me (no way not to, I think), overall I'm pleased.

The first surprise came very early.  Perrin is married??  Sadly, I figured Laila could not be long for this world, but I thought she was pretty badass.  She took out one of the Trollocs on her own. Plus, am I wrong that in addition to being married he was giving Egwene longing looks?  I'm wondering if this means he won't fall for Faile, which is fine with me because she is one of my least favorite characters in the story.

I think they they lost some character development rushing to the Trolloc Raid and the leaving.  In fact, I checked how much was left at one point of the first episode, before the raid, saw the title again and thought, how are they going to get all that needs to happen in?  Bel Tine, Mat dancing with Moiraine, Moiraine giving the boys their coins, Tam's fever talking, finding out Moiraine is Aes Sedai...  The answer?  They didn't.

The Rand/Egwene sex took me a little by surprise as well, since this little town tends to raise their people a bit prudish, but I'm ok with it.  Saying a Wisdom doesn't marry or have children, though, seemed different.  I thought it was rare, but not necessarily a rule.

I don't remember seeing Nynaeve tug her braid, which was one of her character's habits that I found to be overused in the books but I still remember liking.  So far, this Nynaeve is less temperamental, which I find sad but understandable.

I liked that she came looking for 4 possibilities instead of 3 and that one of them was female.  Why couldn't the Dragon Reborn be female? It actually would have made sense since the Reds were culling men who could channel.  

Both times I watched the first episode gave me goosebumps during the Trolloc raid once we saw Moiraine channeling.  I've been waiting a long time to see that. I loved how she threw her whole body into it. Loved that the only villager fighting back scene was a group of women taking down a Trolloc.

I think they missed a small chance to give non-book readers a clue about Rand with Moiraine not needing to take away Bela's exhaustion.  That was what was eventually a clue to her since Rand must have used his power while worried about Egwene.  Though if she thinks Egwene is an option, I guess it makes sense.

Shadar Logoth happened too quickly for me. I missed the Fades driving the Trollocs in, and it didn't have quite the creepy, scary feel.  The almost gently moving fog/mist should have been more tendrils, not just this turning black thing.  It was more alive in the books, and then there's Mordeth. And I also wondered where the Trollocs went when they left the way they came in and the Trollocs were just gone.

I wonder how they will convey the wolves talking to Perrin and since they rushed everything else, thought we would see it in the scene where the one licked his leg.

The serpent ring is not at all as I imagined, but I'm getting used to it.

Edited November 20, 2021 by munchiewoman
Added another thought

[Jack Shaftoe]

Apart from changing Mat and Perrin's backstories to the most cliched sob stories possible, what bugged me the most was Moiraine non-nonchalantly informing the four youngsters that one of them was the Dragon Reborn and they accepting that quite easily. Rand in particular seems to be a lot more bothered by Egwene dumping him than by the Dragon thing. Mat was convinced enough by Moiraine's claims to leave the village, a few days later and he is itching to come back even though he saw that she was right and the trollocs did chase them? Is it because of the dagger's influence or not so great characterization?

2 hours ago, quarks said:

Yeah. I'm assuming that the Whitecloaks have access to the drug that temporarily removes the ability to reach the One Power, but that's a huge switch from the books, and something that would and should have massively changed certain power dynamics.

Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if they never explain how the Whitecloaks pulled that off or why the Tower doesn't retaliate more strongly. They needed a more human enemy and a darker scene for the trailer, hence the burning at the stake. After that... maybe the hunting of Aes Sedai will be quietly forgotten. I just can't take the Whitecloaks seriously, with their lack of armor, very impractical clothing and not bothering to ask Moirane the obvious question "Are you Aes Sedai?".