I used the audiobooks for Stormlight and they are just too long perhaps for that format. I think if I had an absolute ton of time, perhaps I could come back to Stormlight and try again. Perhaps when he actually finishes it, though I think that is over a decade away.
I think they lampshaded all the body movements a little in the most recent episodes, where Child Vanda mentions to Egwene that Aes Sedai don’t really need to use their hands to channel, it’s just a crutch that some of them fall into. It’s just more exciting visually (though I also find it dumb, as well as some of the depictions of battles involving channeling against oncoming attackers. Probably due to budget limitations, but they could be picked up and dropped, have their necks snapped, etc more easily than the big pyrotechnic blasts than they are going for).
The problem with the per page thing is that the first 3-4 books are dense with world building/character establishment. Those aren’t the parts of the series you want to lose. Instead, they can speed over books 7-13 and not miss a whole lot. Hell, dump the Aelfinn, speed through the Shaido and the Camelyn GoT crap and save time there rather than cutting Min, Elayne, and anything remotely fun.
All told, my family is grooving on it and it’s now our Friday family night thing. I can nitpick (can we please make Mat more fun/interesting BEFORE he turns into SadMat? And where the hell are Min and Elayne?), but by and large they’ve created a very good show that is relatively true to the books. I’m a bit leery that they’ve been leaning heavily into the grim GoT stuff though.
Has their been that many occasions to show nudity? Rand and Egwene have sex once (we see it after) and Lan and Moraine share a bath (and we see Lan’s ass, but I imagine Rosamund Pike’s cost to go nude may be costly). Aside from that they’ve been on the road, running for their lives.
I think after Game of Thrones, a lot of prestige or want to be prestige TV is shying away from ridiculously gratuitously nudity. For example, I don’t think there has been a single female nude scene in Succession.
There are lots of opportunities for gratuitous nudity in upcoming seasons if they want to go that route. There is a lot of plot development that happens in the Aeil sweat tents. Just age the wise women into their 30s and you could do whole episodes nude.
A friend of mine is a massive fan of the books. She was really excited when it was becoming a TV show and had been counting down the days. She HATES the show. She said something that slightly helped was this thought, that is a different turning.
I don’t know how much it helps though. When I text her how good the latest episode was she tends to text back “LIES”! As someone who hasn’t read the books and who has enjoyed the series, it was not a reaction I was anticipating, but I also didn’t know how close or far it was hemming to the books.
I will defend Game of Thrones, but one thing that I think is indefensible is some of the nudity in the first two seasons. It wasn’t just gratuitious, it feels…I’m not sure the words…sexist? Disrespectful to women? Tasteless? Hard to explain.
Basically, nothing that happened in episode 5 happened in the books.
I’m able to set that aside and enjoy a new and different story. If you wanted to see the same story in a different medium I could see being very disappointed.
AFAIK, none of Ep4 either. And even before that. I do know that Perrin killing his wife was invented for the books and the whole scene with the Aes Sedai and Logain in the cave was invented. And a few other things.
There was plenty of dong too.
Well, loosely speaking, that’s not true. Rand met Loial, that happened. Mat continues to get worse from the dagger, that happened. Perrin and Egwene were captured by the Whitecloaks, that happened. It just all happened differently than it did in the books. But it is VERY different, and treating it as a different turning of the wheel seems like the best way to handle it. It’s characters with the same names and roughly similar attitudes playing out the same roles as the books we read, but in a different way.
I don’t see it as all that excellent or compelling, but it’s something to watch.
This one is fair. Rand met loial in the library of an inn and some of the dialog was the same.
Matt was still functional he just lost his trust in people. Perrin and egwene were captured by bournhold (dad) and byar, valda was no where around and Perrin murdered two white cloaks.
Sure the broad strokes happened like changing which characters were met by keeping them white cloaks. The book version of the whitecloak capture is one of the driving forces in his story so by removing all of the features that lead to those events I really have no idea where it will go. Which is kind of fun.
One thing I don’t get is why they didn’t have Lan say his “Death is lighter than a feather, but duty is heavier than a mountain” line. I mean, it’s basically his catchphrase, and he had plenty of opportunities to say it this last episode.
Kind of a dick thing to say given what else happened in the episode though.
That was the mindset most of my superfan friends went into this with; “It’s a different turning/one of the mirror-worlds/etc”… after episode 5 basically jumped ship completely, though, they are absolutely done. This is not the Wheel of Time, it’s a show that uses various names from the series.
My most-often repeated quote in my other discussions:
“If I wanted to watch Not-Wheel-Of-Time, I already had plenty of options.”
My wife and I are caught up and we just love it so much. Lots of potential and I will always support shows like this so we get more of the genre.
I have no idea of Lord of the Rings will be any good, but this show is a hit for us.
Speaking of prolific, Sanderson also did an hour podcast discussing the first 4 episodes if anyone is interested:
And signed front pages of a book while doing the podcast!!
Huge book fan here, and enjoying the show more and more with each episode. It’s not a slavish re-creation of the books like Harry Potter (thank goodness), but it’s not unrecognizable like some have hyperbolically claimed. I really think they are keeping to the spirit of things, while speeding it along to have a hope of getting to the good stuff before they are cancelled, and also fleshing out stuff that with 16 books of hindsight (I’m including New Spring and World of WoT) makes sense to pull in earlier.
We know Logain raised an army and wrought havoc, and the Aes Sedai captured and gentled him. So we get to see it. For a TV show, that’s GOOD. Show, don’t tell. I hope we eventually see more stuff like this particularly with The Forsaken, many of whom never felt like real characters with real plans.
I have a few quibbles, but mostly minor. Perrin’s wife, I see why they did it, but I agree with Sanderson the Master Luhan would have been a better choice. I didn’t love Mat stealing in the first episode. He’s a scoundrel, but I don’t think a thief. The wolves seem to be shot from above a lot of the time, and in wide open locations, which makes them seem small and dog-like. I’d prefer them shot from below, in more dense surroundings, to make them look bigger and menacing. (GoT did this well, and yes those were supposed to be huge direwolves, not regular wolves, but still…)
The whole thing with Stepin and Karene is made up for the show, but DAMN did those actors sell it. It made for great world-building, showing the bond between warders and aes sedai in a very visual-medium way. You wouldn’t think there would be emotional attachment to a 2-episode side character that was mentioned once or twice in the books, but if they can manage that, just think how the real big beats from the book will play out.
Voyeuristically, I’m loving watching the reactions and speculations of non-book readers to the show (including my wife). There was a great thread of GoT newbs on TWOP back in the day, and also separate spoiler and non-spoiler threads here to get my fix. Anyone know anything like that for WoT? Some forum or thread of unspoiled watchers or a good podcast thereof?