Robert Jordan's "The Wheel of Time" Visible Spoilers Thread

[Khaldun]

Sexuality is mostly not a big thing period--there's a lot of romance but not very much sex.

[Samwise]

Well that's just entirely deflated my hopes of this being a better-executed Game of Thrones series. 

[Draegan]

I can see male/female wielding the other gender's magic in this world in some way. It would probably make an interesting story.

The Dragon has to be male, the whole story is based on Rand being Lews Therin reborn. They share the same mind space, the same memories etc. Rand's story is based off touching the tainted male side of the source and going crazy.

You can't do that with a woman just because of simple story telling, it would get too convoluted.

A) You have to explain the one power and how it works in the world male vs. female sides.
B) You have to explain the taint and the going crazy part
C) You have to "hide" who the dragon reborn is from the audience because it's an ah-ha moment when he is revealed.
D) Explain the wheel and the reincarnation lore

If you change the sex of the dragon reborn, you then have to explain a few additional things:

1) Without spoiling who the dragon reborn is early, why is this person different (female wielding power going crazy)
2) Why are there no other women who wield the male side of the power
3) Woman embrace the one power, Men fight it. - Assuming the will do some of the Aes Sedai training - why is this different.

THEN

You have to deal a whole new plot points that were never in the book:

Ok you have a woman that is weilding the one power. How is she not going to the Tower to be trained, but the other girls are? Who trains this woman? Do the captured Forsaken recognize her as the dragon? There is the whole thing in the story where there are no male channelers and Rand has to figure out everything on his own with some help from False Dragons and some help form captured Forsaken.

THEN I didn't even consider the possibility that not only would they make the Dragon a woman, but this person might also wield the female side of the power. If this is the case, then everything in the books just breaks down and doesn't work. Then you have a show that is just loosely connected to the WoT series and it becomes a generic heroes journey to defeat the big bad with magic and swords.

[Draegan]

Sexuality is mostly not a big thing period--there's a lot of romance but not very much sex.

Well that's just entirely deflated my hopes of this being a better-executed Game of Thrones series. 

The book does have a lot of seduction (lots of it awkward) but there are a lot of naked people if they ever wanted to go that route.

[Khaldun]

Yeah, I vaguely remember some of the Forsaken being femme fatale types and Rand's got women chasing him but mostly the sex is super-awkward and fade-to-black.

The other thing I can remember being just fucking annoying was how some characters have some kind of silly or adolescent issue or problem, like Nyanaeve being blocked from channelling unless she's angry, that goes on and on and on and on for books and books. That's another thing they can drop--you compress those arcs into one season or so and you just cut about six books worth of material.

[Draegan]

Yeah, I vaguely remember some of the Forsaken being femme fatale types and Rand's got women chasing him but mostly the sex is super-awkward and fade-to-black.

The other thing I can remember being just fucking annoying was how some characters have some kind of silly or adolescent issue or problem, like Nyanaeve being blocked from channelling unless she's angry, that goes on and on and on and on for books and books. That's another thing they can drop--you compress those arcs into one season or so and you just cut about six books worth of material.

That block thing isn't really a big problem of the story. It's just in the background and since Nynaeve is the most powerful aes sedai since the breaking, it acts as a limiter.

[Ashamanchill]

And FWIW the Dark One put's the male channeler into a pre existing female body as a joke. The dude used to be a womanizer and a lecher way back when, and ole Satan puts him into a body of a super hot chick. Its pretty much played for laughs, as the guy is constantly remaking how stacked his is now, and how by being a total flirt he (in a she body) can get whatever he wants. If the series weren't so sexless, it would have shown the guy playing with his new equipment every night.

As for the cosmology of it, you can think of him as not really dying at all, functionally. Yeah, his body does, but the Dark One snags his soul before it gets reborn, complete with all it's memories, skillsets, etc.
Personally, I can't wait to see how they manage to reign in the insane power creep that happens in the series. It's fucking nutty.

[Morat20]

I don't know why we're wasting so much time over the whole "it might be any of the five" thing, given it's been confirmed "No, it's Rand".

So they vague up the prophecy and keep the non-book folks in suspense a bit, maybe balance out the female roles a bit in the process? Rand is still going to be the Dragon, and all five are fairly pivotal characters anyways.

They're going to have to hack and slash the books anyways  to get anything filmable so I don't really have much of an issue with making massive adaptations to the novels anyways.

I mean shit, half of them should have been condensed down into one book anyways.... so if, to make something up, they decide all five are ta'veren (or however it's spelled) and there's much wonderment over which is the Dragon Reborn, that doesn't change much by the time it's clear it's Rand. Three of them are ta'veren in the books, and the two women are very pivotal characters given where they end up -- so they were already the next best thing.

[Khaldun]

There is that suspense in Eye of the World, after all, yeah--it's only at the end of the book that Moiraine and Lan are sure it's Rand and they don't tell anybody about it; up to that point, they've thought it might be Mat or Perrin as well.

[Ashamanchill]

It's going to be perfectly fine as a plot device to get Nynaeve and Egwene out of the Two Rivers without any more faffing about than there already is. The whole thing is moot anyways. I've already read one review where the guy had never read WoT, but easily guessed it was Rand based on the fact that he gets way more screen time than everyone else, and looks way too pretty compared to the others.

[Threash]

I mean, if they stayed any where near close to the book it was always very obviously Rand. The only one who thought it might be one of the three was Moiraine because she had zero context like the reader did.

[Khaldun]

Yeah, we get Rand's dreams directly and we only hear about Perrin and Mat's dreams.

[Chimpy]

I mean, if they stayed any where near close to the book it was always very obviously Rand. The only one who thought it might be one of the three was Moiraine because she had zero context like the reader did.

I think she knew pretty fast it was him but she didn't want anyone else to know exactly who it was because when who was the actual one became more widely known it was more dangerous for him (and everyone around him).

Not that I care about how the TV show is going to portray it, since I am not going to bother watching it. 

[Khaldun]

Gotta love this Reddit chart btw:

Book        tugs   braids tugged   smooths   skirts smoothed
New Spring   5   1   41   5
The Eye of the World   39   1   53   1
The Great Hunt   18   0   80   1
The Dragon Reborn   45   20   69   3
The Shadow Rising   41   6   106   5
The Fires of Heaven   24   3   83   12
Lord of Chaos   30   11   101   16
A Crown of Swords   29   1   80   23
The Path of Daggers   19   2   85   13
Winter’s Heart   18   1   75   14
Crossroads of Twilight   36   1   107   16
Knife of Dreams   23   5   88   12
The Gathering Storm   19   6   37   1
Towers of Midnight   17   2   19   0
A Memory of Light   23   0   23   1

[Ashamanchill]

Rofl.

So because Amazon releases stuff based off GMT this is out now. Watched the first episode, and would have watched more but the baby picked tonight not to sleep. I don't know how to talk about this without spoilers so I won't.

It's aight. So far. Not bad, not great. I don't know why since the LotR movies every fantasy actor has to speak in some for of British Isles accent, but w/e. The trollocs look like shit, but we all knew that was coming.

[Riggswolfe]

Even the best showrunner for this property would have to edit out an asston of the books--not just the bloated prose but also just the endless series of additional elements in the world-building. Even before I just gave up because of the bloat, I found it nearly impossible to keep track of all the characters, the different peoples and kingdoms and histories, and so on.

It's really got to stay tight on the initial group for a long time. If I were going to fiddle with the whole thing as a showrunner, I might keep them together for much, much longer than in the books. I might also just pare off three or four of the Forsaken.

This series makes Game of Thrones look like a couple of books with just a couple of guys. I stopped reading for much the same reason you did. I found myself skipping whole sections of the last one of the books I read because I just didn't care and couldn't remember who the people involved were anyway. Combine that with me being ready to go postal if one more god damned braid was pulled and I just stopped. One of my friends said the last few books were great but I couldn't be bothered.

I'm actually going to be fascinated in how this does. I see very little chance this makes it to the finish line unless it is a monster hit and I just don't see that happening.

[Teleku]

It's going to be perfectly fine as a plot device to get Nynaeve and Egwene out of the Two Rivers without any more faffing about than there already is. The whole thing is moot anyways. I've already read one review where the guy had never read WoT, but easily guessed it was Rand based on the fact that he gets way more screen time than everyone else, and looks way too pretty compared to the others.

This is why I thought it was odd for them to concentrate on making it 'more of a surprise'.  Like, their justification for redoing lore and characters is so that it will be more dramatic, keeping people guessing who the Dragon reborn is.  Which is just silly because there is no way they'll be able to shoot this without it becoming obvious, let alone the fact anybody can google the answer at any time and it's been known to geekdom for 30 years.  It's like trying not to ruin the surprise Vadar is Lukes dad in 2021.  So anyways, the fact they want to change things so much, and that's their reason, was just another red flag the people in charge maybe aren't the best, heh.

[lamaros]

This has released here, I've never read the books and.. it's pretty generic fantasy nonsense so far. Not bad, but nothing particular about it either.

[Cyrrex]

My biggest hesitation is actually that it looks like (from the trailers) a bunch of uninteresting people, wearing uninteresting costumes, doing and saying uninteresting things, with some uninteresting production values.  I would probably give it a try an be willing to have my mind changed if it wasn't on useless fucking Amazon.

[lamaros]

My biggest hesitation is actually that it looks like (from the trailers) a bunch of uninteresting people, wearing uninteresting costumes, doing and saying uninteresting things, with some uninteresting production values.  I would probably give it a try an be willing to have my mind changed if it wasn't on useless fucking Amazon.

It is pretty much this. I expect it will get cancelled before it gets close to touching in any depth on all the stuff people are talking about in here.

[Tale]

Episode 1 - 10:06
Egwene enters tavern.
Bran al'Vere: "My girl. You're back. I was worried that..."

Most wooden delivery of a line by an actor in 2021.

[Reg]

Hah. It's hard to believe they think they're making their viewers guess who the Dragon Reborn is when Rand is the only lily-white pretty boy in the entire village. To me, it looked like their pretense that the Dragon Reborn could be female was shoehorned in at the last minute. They spent a few minutes talking about how the Dragon Reborn was a man, and that men can't use the One Power anymore because of the disaster he caused. Then they casually add that the current Dragon could be a boy or a girl?  Give me a break. Hopefully, they'll just quietly let this drop from here on in.

With all of that, I didn't hate the first episode but I'm doubtful about whether they're going to get past their first season.

[Ashamanchill]

They've already begun work on a 2nd season fwiw, because this is clearly some executives baby project.

My biggest hesitation is actually that it looks like (from the trailers) a bunch of uninteresting people, wearing uninteresting costumes, doing and saying uninteresting things, with some uninteresting production values.  I would probably give it a try an be willing to have my mind changed if it wasn't on useless fucking Amazon.

If you don't already like WoT, this is what is is. That spoiler isn't really spoilery anyways, just playing it safe.

[Threash]

Perrin's wife got 2 minutes of screen time and was already far better than Faile.

[Teleku]

Perrin's wife got 2 minutes of screen time and was already far better than Faile.

LOL (agreed)

But anyways, watched the first three episodes.  I give them props for re-imagining characters in a full grimdark way I didn't expect them to go, so that's fun.  But yeah, this is a mess.  I'm waiting until I'm in an extra special good mood before I venture into the WoT fan forums on Dragonmount and Reddit, because there is no way they aren't losing their shit over this.  It'll be gloriouis.

[Ashamanchill]

Dragonmount? Holy shit there is a name I haven't heard in a while. Haven't been there since the dial up AOL Canada days.

[Khaldun]

As a dude in my FB feed said, "I really cannot invest too much in a show where the ultimate bad guy's name is literally The Dark Lord".

[Phildo]

It's not, though.  It's what they call him so they don't say his actual name which would attract his attention or some such.

[Ashamanchill]

Watched all 3 episodes. As someone who is a huge fan of the books, and can be pretty beck-beardy on specifics at times, I thought they did a good job.

[Threash]

Watched all 3 episodes. As someone who is a huge fan of the books, and can be pretty beck-beardy on specifics at times, I thought they did a good job.

Yeah, I thought they were fine and nothing they changed seemed like a big deal. the trollocs were REALLY well done.

[Rasix]

Thom Merrilin needs a mustache! 

Yah. It wasn’t terrible. Some shit acting but some surprisingly good as well.

[Ashamanchill]

This Thom is 394,2005,2850,366,110,997,384 times better than the book Thom, and the official art for Thom. The art makes him look like a fucking geezer, and

[Reg]

I knew you were a WOT megafan the first time I ever saw your nick here. :)

[SurfD]

This Thom is 394,2005,2850,366,110,997,384 times better than the book Thom, and the official art for Thom. The art makes him look like a fucking geezer, and

Well, Thom is supposed to be in his mid to late 50's at least, if you go by most of the in book descriptions of him.   I mean, his age is never explicitly stated, but I am pretty sure the queen mentioned that he was roughly twice her age when they had their thing going on, and she would have been in her mid to late 20s at the time.  Considering that it's nearly 18 or so years after that that the series started, that would put him at early to mid 50s at the youngest.  Also, I am pretty sure that given his talents, he could easily "look" damn near any age he wanted to within a 20 year range of that.   He probably gets visualized as a "geezer" most of the time because he is actively playing the role off "weatherbeaten traveling entertainer".

[HaemishM]

I've only watched the first episode, and stopped reading the books at I think 4 or 5. The episode was super inconsistent. It felt very much like a slightly bigger budget version of 90's syndicated fantasy TV. At any moment, I expected Bruce Campbell to come fading out of the woodwork or something. Effects were either really good (trollocs) or pretty weak (other trollocs). The acting was meh. It's pretty clear that the showrunners are intent on diversifying the cast even when that makes zero sense, based on how multi-ethnic the Two Rivers cast is - "the old blood" is ranging a pretty wide net of skin tones. 

Mat and Perrin's backstory changes were really the only ones that gave me pause. Matt's parents being pieces of shit was whatever and is likely to be forgotten as soon as they leave the Two Rivers - they could have stuck with "he just straight up steals a girl's jewelry" to show how much of a piece of shit he really is. Perrin being married though is a giant shift from the books, to the point he's not even remotely the same character. I liked Perrin in the books, but not so much that I really care that much about the change, just that it means a lot of the beats he faced when I read it won't make any sense in how he reacts to women.

It was good enough that I'll watch the rest of the season probably.