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

[WayAbvPar]

This popped up in my feed today. Rafe is the showrunner, and it turns out the plan from the start was to diverge from the Books with the full understanding that the hardcore book fans wouldn't like it.

https://twitter.com/TheWheelOfTime/status/1474093697885220871/photo/1

So I guess the message is something like 'If you read the books and really know the lore, we didn't make the show for you intentionally because we are gambling on attracting a different audience."  I can respect that.

So either this asshole is retconning to try to make himself look slightly less incompetent, or the person who greenlit his take on the project should be sentenced to a death of re-reading book 10 over and over until they grow a braid long enough to tug around their own neck and hang themselves.

I did all my ranting in Discord while this debacle was playing out, but let's just say I am not a fan. And I am especially pissed since it made me start re-reading the books. I am near the end of Book 5 now and I can see the slog coming at me in slow motion. It is horrifying.

I am looking forward to re-reading the Sanderson bits though. I feel like I rushed through those the first time around just so I could get a resolution to the thing after all these years. Now I can take my time and noodle about all the stuff from 10 books back coming to fruition.

[slog]

What I'm trying to say is that I can respect a showrunner's methods and goals, even if I think the product blows.  Chris Chibnall's disaster as the Dr Who showrunner for example.  It's been a disaster, but he set out to make Dr. Who a progressive show that reflects modern liberal values and he's owned that vision in every interview.

[lamaros]

He's only saying this after the fact. It's great that you have so much respect for BS excuses though.

[slog]

He's only saying this after the fact. It's great that you have so much respect for BS excuses though.

True, I really have no way to know if he's sincere or not. 

[WayAbvPar]

Sincere or not, the idea of buying a well known IP and then changing 90% of it is idiotic. Why piss away a pre-made audience? Why not just just create your own IP  (answer of course, is that you are a hack)?

[slog]

Sincere or not, the idea of buying a well known IP and then changing 90% of it is idiotic. Why piss away a pre-made audience? Why not just just create your own IP  (answer of course, is that you are a hack)?

Marketing.  It's hard to build an IP from scratch.  It's also easier to get backing from studios when it's an IP that the executives are familiar with.

[Khaldun]

It's kind of bad marketing when you end up making something that the people who know the IP you bought really dislike. "Let's buy a brand name that folks feel some affection for so they'll buy the new product, but let's make sure to turn it into something completely different", said no successful consumer products executive ever.

[Threash]

WOT is not some untouchable masterpiece, other than the world building a lot of it is complete trash. Changing significant parts of it was a given.

[slog]

It's kind of bad marketing when you end up making something that the people who know the IP you bought really dislike. "Let's buy a brand name that folks feel some affection for so they'll buy the new product, but let's make sure to turn it into something completely different", said no successful consumer products executive ever.

The goal of the marketing department is to get you to watch the first episode.   After that, it's not their problem anymore :) 

[Riggswolfe]

WOT is not some untouchable masterpiece, other than the world building a lot of it is complete trash. Changing significant parts of it was a given.

Exactly. This isn't like buying Lord of the Rings or Dune or some other masterpiece (depending on your tastes!) and changing it all up. This is WOT. It's a series that is a showcase for why authors need editors who aren't afraid to take a red pen to large chunks of books if needed.

[Rendakor]

Sincere or not, the idea of buying a well known IP and then changing 90% of it is idiotic. Why piss away a pre-made audience? Why not just just create your own IP  (answer of course, is that you are a hack)?

This is exactly what happened with World War Z; the movie would have been fine, if they had called it Brad Pitt: Zombies or literally anything else.

[Khaldun]

This is the basic point: if you're going to make something so much better than the source material, then why buy the source material in the first place? Just make something better. If you're buying the source material because it draws in people who like the source material, presumably they don't care very much about the problems of the original.

I grant you there are wonderful works that just don't adapt well without some dramatic decision about how to make them move into another medium--the novel Under the Volcano, for example, is unfilmable if you don't think about a way to do it other than how the novel does it; but there's a film and it's pretty good because it did that. But it's also recognizable if you've read the novel and liked it.

[Rasix]

They could have just called it "Blah Blah Blah: A Wheel of Time story", but once you name main characters Rand, Matrim, and Perrin and start the whole thing off like the actual books: you should probably try to follow the books narrative high points. Or you're just a dick and/or hack.

They could have ended up pretty close to getting it right, but then they just shit the bed with that last episode. I don't see how they can even finish the series without it just looking like some sort of cheap knock off and cutting a ton of corners due to how miniscule it looks like their budget is. I can't wait to see how scuffed the entire Aiel are going to be. It should be epic.

They could, at the very least, stop hiring ugly people to play attractive people. I've never seen this happen in any sort of media before. It's usually a "fucking hell this model can't act worth shit", but now it's the same but with a square jawed Liandrin. GAH.

I'm at book 12 in my reread. The Sanderson flow is palpable and much appreciated.

[Ashamanchill]

Why did you have to restart this after my blood pressure had simmered down?

WOT is not some untouchable masterpiece, other than the world building a lot of it is complete trash. Changing significant parts of it was a given.

Why even adapt the IP then? Now I know why a publisher would do it (money), but why would a writer, director, etc do it if they intend to change so much of it substantially. And the only thing I can think of is intellectual cowardice, or at least entitlement. Rather than make your work that you feel would tell this story better, and risk it being (according to its creators at least) under appreciated, why not have big daddy Amazon buy a popular IP with established fans and force the work to suit your view instead of its creators intent?

It's funny because Amazon's other giant fantasy purchase for adaption purposes, the Lord of the Rings one, does it so much better. Why? Because it's a spin off. It's an extrapolation of things that might have happened given the vague parameters set out by its creator. It has to, in some capacity, have Sauron, the multiple rings of power, and depending on where you set it, local inhabitants i.e. Numenoreans, Elves either Noldor remnants or Sindarin, Dwarves. What they did not do was buy the LoTR novels (or the Hobbit, fuck you very much Peter Jackson), with it's already existing characters, world politics, national forces, all complete with the motives and ideals that led them to make the decisions they did in the books, and change it whole hog to suit their new needs. Because that wouldn't be an adaption, that would be fan fiction.

[Rendakor]

I generally agree with the last three posts, and have probably said as much here and/or in Discord. If this was set in the Fourth Age or some Alternate Third Age where the channeling system and the monsters exist but none of the official characters, fine. But this halfass sorta-adaptation is the worst of both worlds.

I assume their hope was that this would be like GoT, where the Show Fandom outstripped the Book Fandom. If that was the case, being loyal to the books wouldn't matter so much, right? Except they forget that GoT got there by being pretty loyal to the source material over the first few seasons, and only changing things when they had to. Books 1-3 would generally work well as a TV show, just taken as written; there's plenty of shitty middle book bullshit to take an axe to later if the showrunner wants to have fun. I understand if they had to trim a few things here and there, but the changes they made this season alone just put everything in a very bad, odd place. It feels exactly like fan fiction, in terms of disrespect to the source material and overall writing quality.

[Tale]

The answer to every question in the last few posts is Jeff Bezos wanted it. I have some sympathy with his tastes after he saved The Expanse because it was his favourite show at the time, and I was fine with this WoT series because I didn't read the books.

[Khaldun]

The original WOT books feel kind of like fan fiction, so there's a match between the show and book in that sense, but it just brings us back to the same conclusion: if you're going to make a show that feels like fan fiction, why not stick to the fan fiction you've already got? If you're going to try and make something definitively better and more sophisticated, you have to do way more than the tinkering they did.

[slog]

The answer to every question in the last few posts is Jeff Bezos wanted it. I have some sympathy with his tastes after he saved The Expanse because it was his favourite show at the time, and I was fine with this WoT series because I didn't read the books.

Right.  If a showrunner put up a new IP idea, Bezos might fund it with a tiny budget but chances are he passes.  Wheel of Time? - He shovels the money out to make it happen.

[Threash]

I've read the books and the show was just fine. It's no early GoT, but neither are the books.

[Ashamanchill]

The original WOT books feel kind of like fan fiction, so there's a match between the show and book in that sense, but it just brings us back to the same conclusion: if you're going to make a show that feels like fan fiction, why not stick to the fan fiction you've already got? If you're going to try and make something definitively better and more sophisticated, you have to do way more than the tinkering they did.

Sure. And no shit, he began his career writing paid fan fiction, in the form of his Conan books. But here's the thing, in WoT he put to action exactly what we are saying. "Man, Tolkien is one cool dude. I wonder why my letters to him keep being returned to sender with a graveyard on the address? Ah well. I'm gonna see what happensif I try to do what he did with my very own world with my very own characters? Oh look I knocked out 3 books. Gonna stop writing for a bit while I check out this book Harriet bought me, Dune, wonder if it's any good."

I've read the books and the show was just fine. It's no early GoT, but neither are the books.

That's like, your opinion man. But more to the point, I highly suspect that most people that enjoyed the show would have liked it just fine had they just adapted it closer to the book without all the derision for the source material, and it would have left those who liked the IP with something to enjoy themselves.

The answer to every question in the last few posts is Jeff Bezos wanted it. I have some sympathy with his tastes after he saved The Expanse because it was his favourite show at the time, and I was fine with this WoT series because I didn't read the books.

Right.  If a showrunner put up a new IP idea, Bezos might fund it with a tiny budget but chances are he passes.  Wheel of Time? - He shovels the money out to make it happen.

Because a titanic corporation wants to make money is not now, nor has it ever been, justification for why the public should have to enjoy a substandard product, nor does it give an aegis from criticism for those that actually worked on it. It is practically written on the arch above the massive wooden doors as you enter these forums.

"Hey, (Age of Conan/Warhammer Online/Rift/choose any other of the stillborn MMOs we have eviscerated over the years) was left in such an incomplete state? And how come it bricks my PC every time my character equips a new shield?"

"Well Funcom wanted to make money now, and not later."

"Oh cool. I guess I am having fun then."

[slog]

Well, capitalism sucks sometimes.

[MediumHigh]

So I'm assuming this ain't getting a season 3 

[Ashamanchill]

I don't want it to, but I think there will be. I think this is a vanity project, and I make no claims about how many people are going to stop watching it.

[Sky]

Aw man, I missed a good ol Covenant/Donaldson bashing. Ironically I was just talking about that in the context of 'offensive' books, and tolerance thereof (because ebay pulled our library listing of one of 'the 6' Seuss books  )

[Rendakor]

I've read the books and the show was just fine. It's no early GoT, but neither are the books.

I was vaguely enjoying the show until the finale, though apprehensive because of the Mat situation. But the last episode set things so far from the source material that they're just going to be making shit up whole cloth going forward.

[HaemishM]

I have little reverence for the source material. The first book is a good take on a Tolkien/Dune mashup, that got progressively worse and more overwritten as the series drew on.

You could have taken the first book as a blueprint for the series and it would have been fine. There was nothing all that wrong with it. Later books, maybe not so much, but the first was fine.

I don't even care that they changed it from the books. What I do care about is that their changes were just fucking abysmal and made little to no sense. It was badly written, badly acted and holy shit, did the budget for effects make this look worse than early 2000's Sci-Fi Channel shows. If you are going to make wholesale changes, you need your execution to be so good that not even the hardcore nerds will care.

That is not what this is.

[Teleku]

Heh, they just revealed who the actress playing Aviendha will be..... and they chose an actress born in Nigeria.   

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm8707040





I think Rafe is just trolling at this point.  Like, I honestly don't give a shit about the race changes for the most part, but this was like the one character where it has an actual important story reason (and all the other Aiel for that matter).  And Rafe realized that enough to specifically cast Rand as the right race and hair color while he ignored that for everybody else.  Eh, the show is a total mess anyways so probably not watching anymore, but I just thought this was funny.  Maybe they'll dye her hair red.

[Rasix]

RIP ginger ninjas.

[Ashamanchill]

I think Rafe is just trolling at this point.  Like, I honestly don't give a shit about the race changes for the most part, but this was like the one character where it has an actual important story reason (and all the other Aiel for that matter).  And Rafe realized that enough to specifically cast Rand as the right race and hair color while he ignored that for everybody else.  Eh, the show is a total mess anyways so probably not watching anymore, but I just thought this was funny.  Maybe they'll dye her hair red.

Like, if he was going to do it, he should have had the balls to commit, and made no one else in the Wetlands white. Cut to a few scenes of his birth, the Aiel War, some other Aiel shit occasionally, and the audience can piece it together themselves. Considering how Aviendha is the first Aiel some of the characters run into and they remark how much she looks like Rand, it's gonna make for some head scratching.

[Teleku]

I mean, to be fair, while that's a big thing in the book that comes up time and time again, so far only Loial (I think....) has done it in the TV series.  And the editing/cohesion of the series has been such a mess if they just ignore that ever happened from here on I doubt anybody would really notice (especially people that actually think what they've done is great).  I guess they could just cut all that and make the Aiel a big group of multi-cultural gender friends like they've done for every other nation and nobody (who hasn't read the books) would really bat an eye.  I mean, it's still very internally inconsistent to the what they've setup in the TV show itself, but again, the whole thing is already a narrative mess.

[Ashamanchill]

Ya for sure. As I've said already, complaints about the ethnicity of the actors is like complaining your tire is flat, after your car has been totalled in a head on with an 18 wheeler. Its not even my biggest gripe about the casting. But that's the thing. I refuse to believe, given some of the shit tier performances I've seen, that even Rafe thought these were the best actors they found. So I'm left with the suspicion that Rafe cast the way he did so he could use it as a catch all shield against all criticism.

[Threash]

Shrug, it worked in Shawshank Redemption. She just has to be as good as Morgan Freeman and we are all set. Desert gingers is just so out there as a concept.

[Teleku]

Was it an important plot point that Andy and Red were the same race in the book?


But yes, I'm mainly just laughing at this and the fandom melting down over things like this.  All of this could be forgiven if they were actually making a fun coherent story, but it's sadly not the case.

[Rasix]

Was it an important plot point that Andy and Red were the same race in the book?

You know what.. for a second I thought you had made an error with autocorrect.  

[Khaldun]

I have to say that I think this is correct, to say that doing diverse casting is in this case (not in many others) at least also a way to find affordable actors with a pre-emptive defense if it turns out some of them are pretty shit. But hey, the positive thing is that occasionally that lets someone into the pipeline who is fantastic that wouldn't have gotten in otherwise.