Wheel of Time (Inevitable Spoilers Thread)

[Mazrim]

No horses in the Ways? My only thought is that they're going to make the Ways very different from the descriptions in the books, so they didn't want the horses around for the action.

Also, did Moiraine...use Traveling to visit with Siuan? Or was it in the world of dreams? How did she warp to her, essentially?

[Harry Lime]

Originally Posted by Mazrim

No horses in the Ways? My only thought is that they're going to make the Ways very different from the descriptions in the books, so they didn't want the horses around for the action.

Also, did Moiraine...use Traveling to visit with Siuan? Or was it in the world of dreams? How did she warp to her, essentially?

I think that in the books they had to blindfold the horses to get them through. That has to be a logistical nightmare to film. The horses don't really get to have personalities in the show, although there was a shoutout to Bela a while back.

I'm guess that was a Ter'angreal. A very specific one that only goes to one place, or else it would be a little too powerful to hide.

[Mazrim]

Originally Posted by Harry Lime

I think that in the books they had to blindfold the horses to get them through. That has to be a logistical nightmare to film. The horses don't really get to have personalities in the show, although there was a shoutout to Bela a while back.

I'm guess that was a Ter'angreal. A very specific one that only goes to one place, or else it would be a little too powerful to hide.

Being a Ter'angreal makes tons of sense. It's a catch-all to be a magical anything you need, so that works great here.

Also, what I was reading recently didn't mention blindfolding the horses in the Ways, just lots of "horse's eyes rolling nervously" while they were in there. All things considered, the ways are just oppressively dark and featureless in the books so perhaps they're going to change them significantly in the show to make it more exciting/scary.

[Sr. Mints]

Watched the first three, and really enjoyed them--far more than I thought I was going to. Was half expecting it to be on par with Shannara: terrific production quality the pilot, then fell right off a cliff

[J epworth]

Originally Posted by Mazrim

Being a Ter'angreal makes tons of sense. It's a catch-all to be a magical anything you need, so that works great here.

Also, what I was reading recently didn't mention blindfolding the horses in the Ways, just lots of "horse's eyes rolling nervously" while they were in there. All things considered, the ways are just oppressively dark and featureless in the books so perhaps they're going to change them significantly in the show to make it more exciting/scary.

Yeah the x-ray features on amazon prime say that its a ter'angreal and what a ter'angreal is so non book readers can find out

[Harry Lime]

Originally Posted by Mazrim

Being a Ter'angreal makes tons of sense. It's a catch-all to be a magical anything you need, so that works great here.

Also, what I was reading recently didn't mention blindfolding the horses in the Ways, just lots of "horse's eyes rolling nervously" while they were in there. All things considered, the ways are just oppressively dark and featureless in the books so perhaps they're going to change them significantly in the show to make it more exciting/scary.

I think that you're right. I expect kind of a Dr. Strange/Inception kind of feel to it. Someone lags behind, and when the group glances behind, they are actually below them. Likewise, you can see something scary coming at them from far away, just by looking up (or something of that nature).

[Kasi]

Really enjoyed the episode tonight. Probably tied with four for my favorite episode. Lots of good stuff with Lan and Rand and Min and such. Definitely waiting to see what’s coming up next episode.

[Harry Lime]

Episode 7 : Looking good, but something is nagging me.

First off, I enjoyed the continued humanization of the characters. There is definitely a concentration on Lan, Moraine and Nynaeve, and the actors are doing very well on building them into believable people. The rest of the cast look really pained all of the time. I'm left hoping for something more dynamic, but all of them are hitting the exact same note.

The plot chugs along, and it leaves me hopeful that exposition dumps are going to be lessened in the second season. The prelogue was cool, with the Aiel War, but I'm not sure if the big reveal landed when the soldier took his helmet off and it was a de-aged Tam al'Thor. We didn't spend enough time with the older Tam for that to be readily apparent. Still, like most things in the series, it drove home some important points, such as the skill of an Aiel warrior and the animosity between factions on the show. A baby born on Dragonmount should come up in dialogue later.

What bugs me is kind of a problem that they made themselves in casting. Since every country is a mish-mash of races (I get it that races are supposed to be a non-issue) each time that they meet a new group of people it doesn't have the impact of a self contained culture. They were desperately trying to avoid the main cast all being white people, but in the end they whitewashed the entire continent.

I would have preferred that all of the Two Rivers folk were Indian, all of the Borderlanders different specific Asian countries, Andor could be England and Tear France, all of the coastal countries African. Aiel would have to be Irish by design, but that's happening anyway. It would make the world look huge, because in a pre-industrial world travel would create more insular groups.

Rand would stick out like a sore thumb though, and there wouldn't exactly be a mystery.

That's probably nit-picking, but that's also the nature of watching a show like this!

[Kasi]

I don’t think you were supposed to recognize Tam from his face but from his sword. It was super obvious that when the guy went to pull out his sword that the very first thing you saw was the heron on his blade. Considering that Rand spent most of the episode walking around with the very same blade it felt pretty obvious to me.

The problem with your race thing is it’s not a pre industrial world. It’s a post apocalyptic world. 3000 years ago everyone lived in a global megalopolis where it was considered routine to commute for work to other continents. Then sure they apocalypse happened and it all got sent to hell, but the background like that really doesn’t make sense to have this world spanning civ and then try to racially separate them in a relatively short genetic time. The reason in our world that people from different areas look like that is because they were split off well over 3k years. Really everyone in WoT should have dominant genetic genes and should have brown hair and eyes for the most part.

I think they’re doing a fairly good job of showing different cultures by their dress. Andorans look different than people from Tar Valon or Sheinar and we also see different dress for tinkers and Aiel and whitecloaks. The scene on dragon mount there is odd since it doesn’t show the watcher why the Aiel are there, who they’re fighting, why Tam is there and so on. Ofc telling the show that it was all about a tree might not make sense.

[Harry Lime]

Fair enough, for sure.

I'm not sure if someone coming into the series just as a watcher and not reader would get the post-apocalyptic part, though. It would be nice to see some more random wreckage, Ozymandias style in the countryside.

Something about the countries not being really vastly different from each other kind of makes the world smaller for me. There is a lot of political hatred amongst factions in this world, and I don't know why that would naturally happen at this point. I'm holding off full judgement until we see Caemlyn and the Seanchan.

The Aiel have certainly been different, and that works for me. In retrospect, they have actually done a good job of presenting the Whitecloaks, considering they have had so little screentime. They are a military force, so the immediate pride and arrogance in their uniforms creates a group personality.

[Kasi]

I think my biggest issue is the scale has seemed small. So we saw this cool scene with Rands mom but there was no shot of armies. It would have been so much nicer if they could have started that scene like 10 seconds earlier with her walking up on to that part of the volcano and panned down behind her and shown a scene at the base of the mountain of Aiel and western armies clashing.

Tar Valon looked great but also small. We saw the tower which looks great but the city felt small. Logain being taken down a small street didn’t help. I wish they had made two street for their TV sets, the one they made with the smaller street and having the inn that Rand and May stayed there. Then a larger street orthogonal to it with a broad boulevard where they could have taken Logain down that leads up to the white tower. Fal Dara also looked good but once again only a couple blocks of it were set up.

I think the quality of the sets has been great but the scale of them has felt very small. I’m sure it’s likely related to the cost of them but maybe they could have had more or bigger if their quality had dropped a bit? I read they spent a while for example making Tinker Wagons. I’ve also heard in the pandemic world CGI companies are overworked and it’s gotten more expensive to make shots like that. That might have led to more physical sets and while they look great they don’t look big. But I guess they can be expanded on in further seasons which is a plus while CGI is always a cost.

Anyway I guess I’m saying is the obvious cost limitations (and extras limitation as well with Covid) we’re seeing is just making the world feel small. We see a town and then landscape and then a city and then the ways and then Fal Dara. I would guess if you ask a viewer who’s not read the books how big everything is and they’d probably say like the whole thing is like the size of France. But it’s more a big continent and such.

[Cain]

I want to like it as I read the books growing up and really enjoyed them.
The production seems...cheap. I know it isn't, but they certainly don't seem to be getting their money's worth compared to other expensive productions in my opinion. The lighting is always constant despite being surrounded by torches, everyone always looks immaculate etc.

Could also go with a bit less of the huge focus on romance, but maybe that is just my preference. I always liked the book for its epic scope, and the relationships were a little secondary. Makes the whole thing seem a bit teeny/young adultish but that may just be my perception. I also haven't read the books since I was quite young myself too so could be remembering some of it incorrectly. Just feel that in a series that is supposed to have 8 seasons for 14 books, and only 8 episodes per season you are going to have to cut something, and entire episodes focusing mainly on some of this could have been trimmed substantially.

I'm still watching it and think it has potential, but really wish they had a different production company or directors involved that were more of the HBO type instead of the current team.

[Kasi]

The books always has a ton of time devoted to relationships and romance. Not sure which books you were reading that didn’t have them. Rand was in a love square, Nynaeve and Lan and Moiraine, the never ending Faile and Perrin stuff. Gawyn and Egwene. Mat and Tuon. Berelain stalking the various Ta’veran. And nearly all the main characters were teens or young adults and super attractive. Maybe you just skipped past all of that, but that’s like thousands of pages of Jordans writing devoted to it. Like you that is not my favorite part of the series but it’s big.

They have definitely taken an approach to look to not make it look grungy at all. I wish Ajah were more subtle in their dress and that Rand didn’t have that one sweater. But I think they’ve deliberately made their show look bright and colourful and not dark and brown and grey. The quality of everything like I said above is good, but the scale needs help. Whether that’s a matter of budget or poor production I don’t know though. Just if there was day 4-5 more cgi scenes that blended into the physical sets that would have made the sets feel bigger.

[Harry Lime]

The scale issue is going to start being a big problem later on, and a small problem pretty soon. It looks like the Sheinarans hold Tarwin's Gap with about 50 guys, right now.

I can't remember the name of the city at the moment, but it is one of the wartorn countries. It is specifically so big and ungainly, that it is possible to lose large items inside of it for literally a thousand years. They really do need to incorporate some CGI and scale up.

[Wastedyouth]

I'm glad I only partially remember the books.

Because I am really liking the series.

[Kasi]

Anecdotal and all but it seems from what I’ve read and watched people who have not read the series are enjoying it quite a bit more. Generally that’s pretty natural there were parts of LotR I didn’t like and I very much disliked the Hobbit. Same for other fantasy series that have been adapted to the screen. Also doesn’t help that WoT has so many details and such that it is hard to really reproduce.

[#-3]

After coming into this cold on the content, I found the first ~ 4 episodes very dry, I had a hard time identifying with or caring about the characters. But they are getting there now.

Right around the time of the funeral, two of them being captured by the whites, and the dagger making the other guy sick, I finally actually started to care about the characters a little bit. I think this show might survive the slow start, because of a built in fan base. But for normal content you've got to make people care about your characters a lot faster than 4 hours into the show. It might really prevent this show from becoming the big monoculture event Amazon hoped for, might also hurt the budget for future seasons.

In my opinion the set design and costuming are also not great, they are too clean, too clever, they just come off as uncanny because they don't looked lived in. IMO you can get away with just about anything in costuming, as long as it looks like something someone can and has worn, I generally buy that people could live in this world, I just don't buy that people have lived in this world when I look at it.

[Cain]

Just watched a couple episodes of the witcher last night and the quality seems well above WoT. I can't pinpoint the reason why, and I'm not a witcher fan to be honest.


Will still watch WoT as I did love the books growing up but can't shake the feeling that their production team is sub par compared to the other big money productions out there.
Edit: Just to note, I am enjoying the series so far overall. May just be that since it was one of my favorite series when I was growing up I am holding it to higher expectations.

[Harry Lime]

Keep in mind that frequently there is a shift in production quality after the first season of any show. Genre shows are especially susceptible to this. Look at the first season of Buffy, Smallville or even TNG.

[J epworth]

Episode 7 was by far my favourite so far, really excited to see what they have for the finale. Feel like there was an improvement in quality for this first post Covid episode which makes me very optimistic for season 2. Hope they change what happens at the Eye though, I think it’s pretty stupid in the books and will be really silly if they try to put it on screen. Looking forward to what they have planned. Think they did as good of a job with cutting Mat out as they could have with the last minute issues with Barney, looks like they will have the conflict become one with Perrin in Fal Dara with Padan Fain instead of Mat? Also like how they will have the reds take Mat, will set up his hatred for Aes Sedai for the rest of the show.