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

[MahrinSkel]

I read a lot of crap. I'm currently reading an RPG-lit Kindle Library series of 18 novels that is just a bare inch from being furry porn (the protagonist and some of his harem are weres, and it doesn't dwell on what form they are in when they fuck).

Don't stop there. Tell us more.

 

Valen Legacy (not Heritage, which was an aborted version that stopped at the second book). The series of trilogies that launches with The Selfless Hero trilogy is good pulp (Warren D. Arrand and Randi Darren are the same person, the ones that headline Darren have much more explicit sex scenes).

--Dave

[Morat20]

I seem to remember a lot of the themes in it having to do with him having recently been through a pretty bad divorce or something like that + dealing with a potentially life threatening illness (might have been leprosy?) before he gets yoinked to the fantasy world, and you are never really sure if what is happening is really happening, or if he is just imagining it as his way of working through his problems

Ya, it was Leprosy he was suffering from. The whole "is this real" thing was a big part of the story, as when he gets cured of the Leprosy he rapes the woman that healed him, and does some other pretty evil stuff as "why not, this is just my imagination!" Then holding onto the doubt of the reality of what he is experiencing becomes a shield in his head as the guilt over what he did threatens to drive him crazy.

He was truly "the Unbeliever" as he had to be to survive. The fact that the big Magic McGuffin was his wedding ring also helped in the symbolism.

The Thomas Covenant books had two real problems from a reader's perspective.

First, most readers rejected the "is this real or not" thing outright. Portal fantasies aren't exactly uncommon, and readers seem to be "Yes, this magical place is REAL" and just reject the St. Elsewhere "it's all a dream" stuff. Which really cut against one of the two major themes of the book, which is that you will never be able to tell if it's real or delusion. He always leaves in the same exact shape he entered. Readers were supposed to treat it as real and delusion at the same time, mirroring Covenant's own inability to tell.

They didn't. Perhaps another author could have pulled it off and had more readers buy into the whole quantum "real and not real" setup but that's not how it worked.

Which goes right into the rape moment. Because here's the thing -- if it's all in his head, that means everything is in his head -- including the Satan allegory. Which ties into the second major theme -- Donaldson was trying for a King is the Land/Land is the King vibe. It's all through the books -- the leader shapes the land and the land reflects the leader. And this applies to Covenant, to keep the whole "real or not" vibe. He's potentially the creator of this place, all taking place in his head. Which means he's got to be capable of good and evil. Which means the Satan-guy (Lord Foul? Something really on the nose like that) comes from Covenant too. he's the good guys and the bad guys. All from his head. Otherwise, you...come to the realization he place is real.

Which Donaldson promptly shows.  Covenant rejects the reality of the place, promptly rage-rapes a girl in an epic act of fucked up denial, and then immediately regrets it and wonders if it's real.

Again, another author probably could have pulled it off in a far less jarring way, showing Covenant can be good or evil and has to actively choose to be one, because the world is good and evil and it's not sure whether it's real or not.

The better part of the series is the way each book basically shows things getting worse, because Covenant won't own up to his original sin. He raped the girl, and keeps trying to...make amends but not own up to it, self-flagellating and trying to "make up for it" but without really facing the fact that he did it. It's always excuses -- he doesn't think it's real, he was out of his mind because he was suddenly healed, whatever.

So each time he tries to "make it right" it just fucks it up more, because he's not basically accepting his own sin. He's still trying to at least partially excuse it.

I mean as a general concept, it's all really clever. But you can see it was a very early book for an author that was probably never, even at his best, able to pull it off. It's got an Arthurian Land/King thing, it's built around a central paradox he keeps tying into everything, he brings in basically original sin and makes the very unlikeable protagonist into this central figure who is both helpless and directly responsible for basically sin itself and the fucked up world, and to add into it -- he makes the world so detailed, so vivid, with such memorable loveable characters that it really highlights what a fucked up guy Covenant is. And you can see it in the characterization -- Covenant truly does love and admire people he doesn't believe are real, without ever realizing that by denying their reality he's also saying "These are facets of me, maybe I do have redeeming qualities".

I guess that's why I still think about it (I never read the last books). It's because he put together this fascinating, clever, great setting and conceit that holds up despite his myriad flaws as an author.

[Sir T]

Ya it was "Lord Foul, the Despiser," who was the big bad in the novels.

And ya I read the first of the sequel novels, and it was a great book becasue of all the great characters he meets... apart from Covenant, who is STILL fucking around with his "is it real or not" bullshit, EVEN THOUGH THERE IS ANOTHER PERSON FROM OUR WORLD WITH HIM NOW.

Dude, for fuck sake, give it a goddam rest. And the thing is, even though he still has this guilt trip unbelief in his head when he is thinking to himself, he is acting like the world is real, so the reader is asked to believe in this stuff even when he is hurting himself to save other people. Covenant is not a believable character in the second story even if you stretch into believing him in the first story. He behaves like the world is real, end of, whatever he says. The writer should have just accepted that Covenant had come to accept what he had done in the years between the story and let that be an end of it.

So I didn't bother reading the rest of the second trilogy. You are pretty much spot on in everything you just said.

[Khaldun]

No, look, most readers completely got it. It just wasn't good.

If you want a portal fantasy that really messes around with the premise and is good, Paul Park's A Princess of Roumania is a good one to read.

[Riggswolfe]

Ya it was "Lord Foul, the Despiser," who was the big bad in the novels.

And ya I read the first of the sequel novels, and it was a great book becasue of all the great characters he meets... apart from Covenant, who is STILL fucking around with his "is it real or not" bullshit, EVEN THOUGH THERE IS ANOTHER PERSON FROM OUR WORLD WITH HIM NOW.

Dude, for fuck sake, give it a goddam rest. And the thing is, even though he still has this guilt trip unbelief in his head when he is thinking to himself, he is acting like the world is real, so the reader is asked to believe in this stuff even when he is hurting himself to save other people. Covenant is not a believable character in the second story even if you stretch into believing him in the first story. He behaves like the world is real, end of, whatever he says. The writer should have just accepted that Covenant had come to accept what he had done in the years between the story and let that be an end of it.

So I didn't bother reading the rest of the second trilogy. You are pretty much spot on in everything you just said.

It's been a long time since I read it but to my memory it's a rare case of a sequel trilogy being superior. Partially because that other character becomes more important and she is a much more likeable person than Thomas Covenant was.

Edit: And looking it up, I just found out there is a third trilogy in the series that just came out a few years ago. Wow. I had no idea.

[Sir T]

Huh. Ya. In that case maybe I should chase down and finish the second Trilogy, because there really was a lot of good stuff in that first book.

[Rendakor]

TIL that there's a literary term for isekai anime.

[Lucas]

Uuuh, ok so...I guess that season finale was a good enough piece of fan fiction 

[Threash]

It's out already?

[Lucas]

Yep, at least here in central europe (went up at 1am CET, now it's 2.34am)
-------

I mean, the writers of this show are incredibly awful, everything is rushed because of the limited amount of episodes....But I'm in for the ride: I imagine the cold opening was quite intriguing for non-readers, same for the last scene.  

As a book reader, well....very controversial choices, and some of the events don't really make sense (Egwene and Nynaeve most of all).


But hey, I want to see Elayne and Aviendha having a bath together, so I don't care.

Wait, did I really say that?

Joking aside, there is a lot of interesting ground to cover in the following books: maybe the people involved in the show will somehow become competent at their job and give us more coherent and better written scenes.

[Ashamanchill]

It's out already?

It comes out 12am Friday GMT.

[Ashamanchill]

Ok I might be out after this season. Not only are we they diverging super duper hardcore from the books, but holy shit that cgi  was like 1990s Xena and Hercules tier bad.

[Rasix]

Dude. WTF is this garbage.

[Ashamanchill]

It's fucking bad. Then, at the end, it gets worse.

[lamaros]

I mean, the writers of this show are incredibly awful, everything is rushed because of the limited amount of episodes...

Joking aside, there is a lot of interesting ground to cover in the following books: maybe the people involved in the show will somehow become competent at their job and give us more coherent and better written scenes.

Everything is rushed because they're dogshit writers and even worse at adapting.

Will they get better? Umm, no. Noting that I haven't seen this episode and probably won't.

[Tale]

Having not read the books, I don't know that it's fan fiction. I'm being put into a very fleshed-out fantasy world and an intriguing story keeps unfolding, so I want more.

[Threash]

Having read the books I am still loving it as apart from the worldbuilding the books are mostly ass and should be changed.

[Rendakor]

I didn't hate it (but again, bottom of the barrel expectations). They made a lot of weird changes though, that are going to fuck up where everything was going, going forward. Full on new-story-in-preexisting-world territory. It's not clear if Rand actually killed Ishamael there or not. I'm assuming that was one of the Dark One's prison seals that broke, even though I always imagined them much smaller. How Padan Fain got the Shadar Logoth dagger was probably my biggest "that doesn't make any fucking sense" moment; presumably Moiraine would have kept it on her, if she did not stash it somewhere in Tar Valon. There's no world where she would have left it in her room in Fal Dara. Loial being dead is a big change, unless he's just grievously wounded. Agelmar also did not die in the books.

[Ashamanchill]

All my previous little niggles are now like criticizing some sailor missing a spot on the floor of the HMS Hood, as it's magazines are about to explode. For those that don't read the books, it would be like if the GoT TV show decided not to kill of Ned Stark, and Khal Drogo never bought Daenerys because he didn't beleive in the sex trade. Whatever we might think of the changes, it is going to diverge from the source material rapidly. Which means I have to judge the show on it's own merits. It's absolute gob shiite. The effects are trash, I dont know any of the characters, and I absolutely HATE how the women channeling looks so video gamey. Like their spells all have little cast bars beneath them, while they do their ridiculous gestures. In the books, such gestures were minimal, and done for a quick reference. Here, they look like a 9th grade drama student was told to act like a wizard.

There are ways to do things like this right. In the LotR movies, they up jacked Arwen's character to be more involved in the action. Good change. They did not have her say "fuck these stupid Willow wannabes" and have her take the ring to Mordor, then have Aragorn turn to the shadow just because. This series is more in The Hobbit movie level of changes. And wait wait wait. They are changing shit from the books, but they aren't adding in sex and nudity?

Loial being dead is a big change, unless he's just grievously wounded. Agelmar also did not die in the books.

Also Moraine being stilled. Even so her bond with Lan would have still worked, not that these writers give a shit about that. Oh, and if Egwene can up and heal Nynaeve of Little Boy just detonated above her level wounds, why the fuck does she need the White Tower? And why did the Seanchan tidal wave an empty beach and hillside, with just that one little girl on it? Forget that it's not what the Seanchan would do in the books, that just makes no sense.

Everything is rushed because they're dogshit writers and even worse at adapting.

Will they get better? Umm, no. Noting that I haven't seen this episode and probably won't.

Ah cmon man, you have to watch for this dogshit CGI!

[Rendakor]

I assume Nynaeve will fix the stilling much sooner than she discovers how in the books.

[Ashamanchill]

Also loved the actor they got to play Ishamael. He looks better than he did in my head. Don't love how he is dressed like he got caught in the bore halfway through dressing for his daughter's quinceanera.

[Lucas]

You know, it's even not so much about the changes:

- I can accept Moiraine getting stilled, considering that in the following books she acts more like an advisor (a bad and desperate one at that) to Rand. Big deal: we'll have a Siuan/Moiraine dynamic (much earlier than in the books, Siuan will get stilled next season, IMO) instead of the book Siuan/Leane ;

- Getting rid of the last chapters at the Eye and changing them: ok, fine, also the actor portraying Ishamael is good, I don't care for those minor Forsaken ;

- Sanderson recently spoke about not being able to really give advice on episode 7 & 8 because of the COVID break; also, some changes had to be done because of Barney Harris sudden departure. Perrin with Uno & gang chasing Padan Fain? Not that earth-shattering change, considering the circumstances (hopefully Mat will eventually go to Rhuidean and start being Mat, you know) ;

Loial is alive, Judkins confirmed that in an interview published today ;

- Rand not being at Tarwin's Gap? Ok, fine, he will have his highlights if those fuckers will actually decide to take the books into consideration ;

- Prologue and last scene were fine with me.
----------

Total and utter dislike for the portrayal of Lan, Egwene and Nynaeve and also the decisions about Agelmar and Amalisa.

But the real problem, again, is dialogues and pace: fine, George Martin had TV experience and also wrote dialogues similar to a "theatrical" play, so they read and look elegant both on paper and are easily translated to TV. Jordan was a different writer.

But that doesn't mean dialogues and pace should look like an amateurish D&D module played by a 12 year old DM.

[Ashamanchill]

Total and utter dislike for the portrayal of Lan, Egwene and Nynaeve and also the decisions about Agelmar and Amalisa.

But the real problem, again, is dialogues and pace: fine, George Martin had TV experience and also wrote dialogues similar to a "theatrical" play, so they read and look elegant both on paper and are easily translated to TV. Jordan was a different writer.

But that doesn't mean dialogues and pace should look like an amateurish D&D module played by a 12 year old DM.

Without even resorting to the books, there is a scene in the episode where Nynaeve mentions she knows how to track Moirane, 'she has a tell'. This would have to be something that her companion of multiple decades, who shares a platonic bath with her when the situation calls for it,  and who's very job it is to know these things and account for them, is unaware of. Okay tv writers, what is? Don't just have Nynaeve teach Lan this offscreen (telling), have a quick scene where she mentions it (showing). Maybe it turns out that Moirane is a chain smoker and leaves butts everywhere, and Lan you self absorbed asshole, you never noticed, Maybe she has a super heavy bootprint, and you never looked down you dunce. But no, the show is either too insecure we will think thier reason is dumb, too lazy to actually come up with an explanation, too much in a rush to bother with a nice scene of specific character building, or all of the above. Taken by itself, these scene would have been whatever. But I think it is emblematic of how this show's creators are botching it, even after I remove any and all comparisons to the books from my thinking.

[HaemishM]

Dude. WTF is this garbage.

Kind of my reaction. Eye of the World was the best, most coherent book of the ones I read in the series. That they turned it into... whatever the fuck this was is not a good sign. The Rand bits were the only thing worth a shit right up until he channels, and then the whole thing went to utter shit. I'm still trying to figure out why you even bother to put the Wheel of Time name on it if you're just going to write whatever weird story you want.

EDIT: The "Moiraine has a tell thing" was both silly and completely unnecessary. Lan doesn't actually DO anything with the knowledge, he makes it there after everything is over and serves literally no function in any of the action. He should at least have been fighting at the gate, and after it's all over, Moiraine comes wandering disheveled out of the Blight and then she tells him she's stilled. This was just... why? Most of their story choices just serve no real purpose but they sure do eat up a lot of screen time that could have been used on more important things. Like maybe explaining why the Dark One is so hated.

And holy shit, Lews Therin Telamon lived in the Dune universe? Because that's what it looked like.

[Ashamanchill]

And holy shit, Lews Therin Telamon lived in the Dune universe? Because that's what it looked like.

By dint of being in this universe, yes, yes he did. I don't know how far you read, but Dune was Jordan's largest influence on the series as a whole. To a bit of a rip offey degree. Right down to the in universe quotations to start the books sounding like they came straight from Princess Irulan.

[Draegan]

I thought it was rather fun. I will watch more bc I'm intrigued.

[Threash]

Same, final episode didn't knock it out of the park or anything but it was good enough to keep watching. The only thing that annoyed me was calling Lews Therin dragon reborn instead of dragon.

[Riggswolfe]

And holy shit, Lews Therin Telamon lived in the Dune universe? Because that's what it looked like.

By dint of being in this universe, yes, yes he did. I don't know how far you read, but Dune was Jordan's largest influence on the series as a whole. To a bit of a rip offey degree. Right down to the in universe quotations to start the books sounding like they came straight from Princess Irulan.

Once the Aiel were introduced I remember thinking to myself. "Is he going to get sued by the Herbert estate? This isn't even subtle..."

[slog]

I do like how the writers have carved out a lot of stuff from the books, because I think most of it wouldn't translate to TV.  Overall, I enjoyed it.  Looking forward to season 2.

[SurfD]

I do like how the writers have carved out a lot of stuff from the books, because I think most of it wouldn't translate to TV.  Overall, I enjoyed it.  Looking forward to season 2.

Wut?

Like, seriously, I almost literally can not think of anything in the first book that wouldn't have translated almost perfectly to TV, and very little would have needed to be cut at all even for the sake of cramming it into a decent shorter season length.  You could have done almost the entire first book, without skipping or cutting anything, in a well written 12 episode series, and absolutely minimal changes would have been needed.

Instead we got this abomination of character butchery and frankenstein's monster of plot rewrites.

[slog]

I do like how the writers have carved out a lot of stuff from the books, because I think most of it wouldn't translate to TV.  Overall, I enjoyed it.  Looking forward to season 2.

Wut?

Like, seriously, I almost literally can not think of anything in the first book that wouldn't have translated almost perfectly to TV, and very little would have needed to be cut at all even for the sake of cramming it into a decent shorter season length.  You could have done almost the entire first book, without skipping or cutting anything, in a well written 12 episode series, and absolutely minimal changes would have been needed.

Instead we got this abomination of character butchery and frankenstein's monster of plot rewrites.

I enjoyed the first book, but stuff like Rand and Matt walking from town to town for a month as they made their way to Tar Valon isn't going to have enough action in it  for a new TV series that has to wow viewers to make it to season 2.  That's just the reality of the internet age.

[lamaros]

You're remembering the book wrong. There's a bunch of stuff to cut there, but enough excitement still.

More than there is the stuff they made up, too.

[slog]

You're remembering the book wrong. There's a bunch of stuff to cut there, but enough excitement still.

More than there is the stuff they made up, too.

It's true, but you also have to remember that the Showrunners don't get to do whatever they want.  Amazon reportedly upped the budget for Season 2, but I can imagine that they only had enough money for 8 episodes and needed a big ending.

[SurfD]

I enjoyed the first book, but stuff like Rand and Matt walking from town to town for a month as they made their way to Tar Valon isn't going to have enough action in it  for a new TV series that has to wow viewers to make it to season 2.  That's just the reality of the internet age.

You could do that in a couple minute montage scene and lose nothing, while still giving people a good impression of what the countryside looks like, how various people reacted to strangers and the like.   Show them sometimes being welcomed with friendly reception, sometimes being run off by armed family, etc, etc.   The books actually used that time to set up some of the political atmosphere and uncertainty that was starting to build in the area.

Also, just to clarify: they were walking to Caemlyn.  They don't even get to Tar Valon until the second book.

[Ashamanchill]

As a whole group they never made it to Tar Valon. Eg and Nynaeve go there in 2, Matt in 3. And thats about it.