Wheel of Time

Not to mention all the braid-pulling. ;P

Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Sep 11th 2021 at 10:40:24 AM

Robbery: I didn't intend to make you laugh, but I'm glad I did. If I can make people laugh by accident, maybe I should become a comedian!

I don't know anything about the actor cast for Rand and I can only hope he's able to play him well. He'll have to act the progression from farmboy Rand to Darth Rand to Jesus Rand in a convincing manner.

sounds like Anakin skywalker!

A few more short teasers have been released. Let me embed to two of them:

The first covers our starting Shadowspawn:

While the second teases Logain—and gives us a brief look at some channelling!

The first at least gives us a good look at the appearance of the series' trollocs, and... they look fine, as far as I see. I'll confess that an earlier teaser had me a little worried that we wouldn't be getting proper beast-folk trollocs but rather humans in horned helmets—and I'm glad to say that this doesn't seem to be the case!

Indeed, a better look at a(n unfortunate) trolloc can be seen in this poster:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FBmyQiUVcAEf84c?format=jpg&name=4096x4096

As to the Fades, I'm not a huge fan of this series' interpretation of their facial features—perhaps I misread or am misremembering, but my mental image of Myrddraal has long had it that their faces are pretty much "standard human, but very pale" from the cheekbones down. And I think that I like the relative-subtlety of that to the very inhuman mouths that we see on these Fades.

Still, that's very much a niggle—they look fine in and of themselves, I feel, and it's hardly something that's going to prevent me from watching!

A third teaser was a clip from the Winespring Inn—but it felt to me, I think, that watching that would be going a little too far towards spoiling the experience, so I skipped it! ^^;

(Indeed, presuming that they release a fuller trailer I'll likely not watch that, and will likely duck out of the thread at that point, returning only when I've watched the season itself!)

You're misremembering. It's a thing that the Myrddraal have no eyes. Personally, I think they did a really good job on them.

And Logain looks intense.

Hence "from the cheekbones down". :P

That is, my mental image is that the lower portion of a Myrddraal's face is pretty much human, but pale, with only the upper portion looking obviously otherwise.

Here their mouths, too, look unusual when closed, and non-human when open.

That indeed he does!

The new trailer is out.

Edited by nightwyrm_zero on Oct 27th 2021 at 12:39:31 PM

Ah, at last this time has come:

With the release of the trailer, I intend to drop out of this thread until I've watched the season!

I'm pretty excited about this one, so I want to avoid too many spoilers (less in plot—I've read the early books—than in adaptation and overall experience). And... I suppose that I want to avoid any indications at this point of failings that it might have. I want to go in fairly unbiased by such.

So, for now, I bow out of the thread—but I intend that with the turning of the Wheel I, too, will return! ;)

Trollocs look pretty good (or at least I'm assuming that's what those things are).

"One of the five of you..." Wait, what?

Still a technically true sentence.

Rand, Mat, Perrin, Egwene, and Nynaeve.

I do like how colourful this is looking. And yeah, the Trollocs look good.

Let me rephrase that; The book only made a nominal attempt at making the reader think that Mat or Perin could be the Dragon Reborn. Now the show is going to try to add Egwene and Nynaeve to that, even though they're supposed to know the Dragon Reborn is a man? And Nynaeve is way too old, since they're supposed to know the exact year the Dragon was reborn?

EDIT: okay, I want to make it clear that while this bit bugs me, I actually think the trailer looks great.

Edited by MisterTambourineMan on Oct 31st 2021 at 9:14:11 AM

Interestingly, Jordan originally wanted Tam Al'Thor to be the Dragon Reborn, because he was interested in doing a story where the savior figure was already an experienced soldier and didn't discover who he was until later in life, and because he wanted to show the father-son dynamic between Rand and Tam; Rand was going to still be an orphaned Aiel adopted by Tam who would go on to become the Car'a'carn. He struggled through a partial draft of the first book like that before deciding it was just easier to make Rand the Dragon Reborn, after which he made progress much faster.

First three episodes just went up.

I can't watch them until tonight/tomorrow unfortunately.

EDIT: Only had time for the first one for now.

A few things feel off, but I'm aware that is mostly my bias of wanting things to be the same as the books. Things like Moiraine hearing rumors of Ta'veren seems unlikely, and the changes to her arrival like the lack of an alias I get are because of the formatting change and needing to accelerate things.

Dropping Egwene into river to join the Women's Circle is interesting. Good foreshadowing for Saidar really. Although honestly it seems like something the Women's Circle would disparage in the books. At around this point pausing gave me the trivia about the writers aging up the cast a bit.

Seems like everyone bar Rand is getting tweaked backstories. With Nynaeve already knowing listening to the wind = the One Power, Mat's family and Perrin's wife.

Which speaking of, was the biggest twist of the episode for me. It's really going to tie into the Tinker's though. And don't think I didn't notice her using a hammer and him an axe.

Rand's jumper was also wonderful.

Lastly, I did notice the show was much heavier on the fanservice from Lan in the bath scene which I thought was nice.

So far I'm enjoying the show.

Edited by 32ndfreeze on Nov 19th 2021 at 11:45:00 PM

I watched the first episode, and I appreciate that the nudity is equal opportunity.

Thom has been dropped. OK. And I kind of get the impression Padan Fain has already been to Shadar Logoth.

Egwene has been upgraded to full ta'veren and is a candidate for Dragon Reborn. We know that won't happen unless the writers decide to really screw with us, but I thought it was a good touch.

It really seems like the Women's Circle is written to parallel the Aes Sedai. As for Nynaeve's new backstory, it's weird that the Aes Sedai would turn away her adoptive mother just because she's a culchie, when in the books it's a point of pride that social status in the outside world has no bearing at all on how one does in the White Tower. Indeed, the current Amyrlin is the daughter of a fisherman, and the majority of Amyrlins have come from humble backgrounds.

This leads me to think that the previous Wisdom wasn't entirely honest with Nynaeve. I'm guessing the previous Wisdom actually was her biological mother. Either she managed to get into the Tower but left when she got pregnant, or maybe she was one of the Daughters of Silence.

The language is somewhat coarser. In the books, "bloody" and "flaming" are treated as strong language, but in the show we get "shite", "prick", and "piss". Game of Thrones still casts a shadow, it seems.

The portrayal of weaving resembles bending; Moiraine looks like she's weaving long strands of qi together to make stuff happen. Given the Taoist symbolism surrounding the One Power in the books, this is a fitting choice. It works really well, being visually interesting while also getting across the notion of weaving things together.

And they've completely dropped the whole ageless look for Aes Sedai. This makes sense, since I'm not sure how you would even do that on screen, though it will mean some rewrites are in order when the Kin are introduced (if they are).

Overall, a promising start, but I'll reserve judgement until I've seen a few more episodes.

I'm liking some of the altered foreshadowing so far.

Like Egwene going with the flow of the river being symbolic of how you channel Saidar.

I liked Perrin's more agressive, feral side coming out with his use of the axe.

I liked the Two Rivers people teaming up to take down a Trolloc. I forget if that happens in the book, but it sets up how tough they can be really nicely.

I liked the way they established that male channelers go insane.

And I'm really liking this version of Padan Fain.

Edited by GNinja on Nov 19th 2021 at 8:14:11 PM

Mean as it sounds, dropping Thom, at least from this early part of the story, is a solid adaptational change. It reduces the character count, and he doesn't really...do anything in the first book that can't easily be changed to someone else.

I just finished the first three episodes. The first one started a bit clunky, but it quickly became very engaging. The production value is obviously very good and the acting is great. Nynaeve surviving was incredibly predictable, so I'm glad it was revealed almost immediately.

Okay caught up. Book spoilers for EOTW in my post.

I really liked the actors for Rand, Egwene, Lan, Perrin and Mat in the first episode, but wasn't sure on the actress for Nynaeve. She didn't feel prickly enough to me, but come episode 3 I really like everyone. Probably the main cast member I think fits the least would be Moiraine, but no where near terrible.

Although a part of that is maybe me being bugged a little by some of the changes with her. I 100% get why they cut stuff out to smooth things along, but the Manetheren scene and the coin scenes are some of the things that stuck in my mind the most about EOTW. So its a shame they were cut.

They do seem to be changing a fair bit, some of which slips my mind because of familiarity with the books. Like I forgot Tam didn't reveal to Rand he isn't his father in the show. Until I saw someone mention it.

I also miss Baerlon, because I just really love everyone being so impressed with the "big city".

I love the vistas they've shown in the show so far. They really do look lovely.

The Whitecloaks stuff is fantastic. Although I still much prefer the book Aes Sedai ring design.

Maybe my favorite added scene in the one with Mat, Perrin and the knife in episode 2, right before Mat picks up the ruby dagger. I do think maybe they put such a nice scene there so people have a bit more of a fond memory of Mat before his incoming paranoia. Which you see the very beginning of with him joking about Rand leaving him behind.

I think the choice to change up add Dana and change up Thom is pretty interesting. I doubt they'll show as many towns as in the book. Although I wonder if Thom will get separated from them or not? Plus, with Rand probably channeling a bit at the end of Episode 3, maybe his sickness will happen while Thom's around?

TGH spoilers Lastly, maybe this was by accident, but I think its very funny that when Liandrin shows up, the trivia Amazon shows you is the Darkfriend one that popped up with Dana's death. Maybe someone was feeling a bit cheeky?

Edited by 32ndfreeze on Nov 21st 2021 at 7:01:53 AM

I've seen the first two episodes. Some of the things on the presentation side seem good; I like the look of the Trollocs and the Bending-style coreography for Channeling. The performances have been decent to good, though they can run through exposition pretty quickly. I was kind of baffled as to the girl Perrin met at the forge, and was kind of shocked when she died, though in retrospect it makes sense. My biggest complaint thus far is that, between Thom being Adapted Out and Mat's Adaptational Angst Upgrade it doesn't seem like there's going to be much humor.

I'm wondering if, having never read the Wheel of Time books, it would be good to read the series first, or watch this, or what?

I would suggest, if you had plans to read the books before hand. Read them first.

If you aren't sure you'd definitely read the books, just watch the show.

That said, its a behemoth of a 14(+1) book long series.

So you could also just read the first couple of books before watching the show.

Although the show might influence how you see the characters a little bit.

I read the first book awhile back but felt no desire to read the rest of the series,I'm a lord of the rings fan so I did notice quite a few similarities