WHEEL OF TIME officially optioned for television

[Astromech]

The Wheel of Time Roleplaying Game has very good physical descriptions of the various nationalities in Randland.

On ‎4‎/‎9‎/‎2018 at 8:39 AM, Corvinus said:

Technically WoT has plenty of boobs, too, it just that Jordan never cared to go into details of the gritty and nasty. It's up to the readers to use their imagination. It does have less sex, though. But it does have way more gore.

and well-turned calves

[red snow]

11 hours ago, fionwe1987 said:

Because you're then left with clones of these other shows. TV has moved from formulaic repeat stories. The biggest TV successes, critically and commercially, are shows that try new things, and create a visual language and storytelling style strong enough to entrench a fanbase quickly, who then increase viewership by word of mouth.

Frankly, I think WoT has a unique selling point already: female characters. IF they get a sensible showrunner who discards the crappier aspects of RJ's female characterization and keeps the large variety of women in diverse roles in the story, they'll have something unique.

Frankly, I think a clever showrunner will capitalize on the base material to make the story speak more strongly to the current moment. A show set in a matriarchal world is not at all something any other tentpole epic fantasy series can offer, and rather than copying the nudity and exploitative nonsense of GoT, they'd be smart to distinguish WoT by having plenty of female characters who're not raped, sexually objectified, etc.

I'm all for them trying the angle you suggest and agree that the breakout shows are often the ones that try and be different. Still there's a reason why there are lots of medical and police procedural shows around (that really don't distinguish themselves  that much) and there was a flood of unsuccessful lost clones. I think the only reason a lot of fantasy shows are currently in development is because of the success of got.

[mormont]

18 hours ago, Rhom said:

I know many people who refuse to watch GoT because of the nudity.  I don’t know anyone who watches because of the nudity.

Or at least, you don't know anyone who admits to doing so.

[Myrddin]

2 hours ago, Astromech said:

and well-turned calves

And sturdy braids.

[Werthead]

Quote

 

I'm not a WoT expert, but I don't remember Andoran nobility being described as dark-skinned. Many of them have blue eyes or blond hair. There is a chapter in The Path of Daggers, when the rebel Aes Sedai army was in northern Murandy, and Egwene was meeting representatives of both Andoran and Murandian nobility. If I remember correctly, Murandian nobles were dark-haired and had brown eyes, but Andoran nobles had more "Northern European" look. I might be completely wrong on this.

 

At one point one of the Two Rivers guys was described as "dark", not in the sense of being say black-skinned, but certainly not a pasty-faced white dude. That's led to a strong fan suggestion that native Two Rivers and Andoran folk might be southern European/Latino in skin colouring rather than dudes from say England or Norway (although the fact that Andor is clearly riffing on England means that gets mixed up a bit). Obviously the difference is not so enormous that Rand would have been left looking like an albino or something in comparison, but it's not a clear-cut case that Two Rivers folk are typical fantasy white dudes, maybe more like Southern Europeans.

I think you can certainly get away with ethnic-blind casting in WoT in a way that'd be harder to make work with LotR or GoT, as long as it was internally consistent.

[fionwe1987]

9 hours ago, Jussi said:

Thanks. Lan has blue eyes, so I never thought he looks Tibetan.

Actually, I may have made a mistake there. I went looking for the quote and couldn't find it.

I'm not a WoT expert, but I don't remember Andoran nobility being described as dark-skinned. Many of them have blue eyes or blond hair. There is a chapter in

The Path of Daggers, when the rebel Aes Sedai army was in northern Murandy, and Egwene was meeting representatives of both Andoran and Murandian nobility. If I remember correctly, Murandian nobles were dark-haired and had brown eyes, but Andoran nobles had more "Northern European" look. I might be completely wrong on this.

Ishara isn't current nobility, but from thousand years ago. She married a Borderland lord, so its possible her offspring all lost her dark coloring, though that would be weird.

Clear afternoon light through the glassed casements in tall windows along the walls mingled with the colored light through the great windows set in the ceiling, where the White Lion of Andor alternated with scenes of Andoran victories and the

faces of the land’s earliest queens, beginning with Ishara herself, as dark as any of the Atha’an Miere, as full of authority as any Aes Sedai.

At the same time, Rahvin was dark skinned, and passed off as an Andoran nobleman from the Mountains of Mist. It is entirely possible that while some noble Houses of Andor have European coloring, the further west you go (ie. closer to Arad Doman), darker skin is more prevalent, which can also match the somewhat ambiguous description of Two Rivers folk.

Its also worth noting that people from the Two Rivers, who have never seen the outside world, don't blink at the very dark skin coloring of various characters, even though they make much of the new cultural stuff they encounter.

[Starkess]

6 hours ago, fionwe1987 said:

At the same time, Rahvin was dark skinned, and passed off as an Andoran nobleman from the Mountains of Mist. It is entirely possible that while some noble Houses of Andor have European coloring, the further west you go (ie. closer to Arad Doman), darker skin is more prevalent, which can also match the somewhat ambiguous description of Two Rivers folk.

Its also worth noting that people from the Two Rivers, who have never seen the outside world, don't blink at the very dark skin coloring of various characters, even though they make much of the new cultural stuff they encounter.

And everyone thinks that Rand looks like an Aiel as soon as they see one, so he must have been somewhat unique coloring compared to the Two Rivers folks.

[Astromech]

6 hours ago, fionwe1987 said:

 

At the same time, Rahvin was dark skinned, and passed off as an Andoran nobleman from the Mountains of Mist. It is entirely possible that while some noble Houses of Andor have European coloring, the further west you go (ie. closer to Arad Doman), darker skin is more prevalent, which can also match the somewhat ambiguous description of Two Rivers folk.

Its also worth noting that people from the Two Rivers, who have never seen the outside world, don't blink at the very dark skin coloring of various characters, even though they make much of the new cultural stuff they encounter.

I always assumed the darker hair and complexion were features of the old Manetheren blood in the Two Rivers. For some reason I always pictured Egwene as having blond hair as opposed to dark.

[fionwe1987]

1 hour ago, Starkess said:

And everyone thinks that Rand looks like an Aiel as soon as they see one, so he must have been somewhat unique coloring compared to the Two Rivers folks.

He definitely is fairer than people of the Two Rivers:

Quote

Elaida had put down her knitting, Rand realized, and was studying him. She rose from her stool and slowly came down from the dais to stand before him. “From the Two Rivers?” she said. She reached a hand toward his head; he pulled away from her touch, and she let her hand drop. “With that red in his hair, and gray eyes? Two Rivers people are dark of hair and eye, and they seldom have such height.” Her hand darted out to push back his coat sleeve, exposing lighter skin the sun had not reached so often. “Or such skin.”

[Jussi]

Wert & fionwe: thanks for your posts. They were interesting reading.

Cover art have an impact on how you think the characters look like. Here in Finland our publisher decided that Tuon is white. This is the Finnish cover art for the second half of Winter's Heart:

http://kuvanjako.fi/h5095.jpg

The name of the book is "Daughter of the Nine Moons".

[Starkess]

Forgot to post this when I first saw it, but tentatively good news from Harriet at JordanCon this year: there is a (currently unknown) network attached to the show, and it will get a full season if it's ordered. 

[red snow]

I was under the impression Amazon had already announced they were developing it from a few months back? Either old news or very new news that something has changed

[Werthead]

14 hours ago, red snow said:

I was under the impression Amazon had already announced they were developing it from a few months back? Either old news or very new news that something has changed

No, it was a leak.

[fionwe1987]

So, not only is Amazon confirmed, but now, the tentative title of the Pilot/first Episode has been released: Leavetaking.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2018/07/24/wheel-of-time-showrunner-teases-episode-1-script

Here's hoping its an actually decent script. Leavetaking is a chapter title in multiple WoT books, but it is chapter 10 of Eye of the World, when Rand and co. leave the Two Rivers.

The first 10 chapters set up the Two Rivers and the characters, introduces Moiraine, Padan Fain and his stories of the False Dragon, has the Trolloc attack at the al'Thor farm and Emond's Field, and Tam's injury and Healing. That's quite a lot, but it makes perfect sense to compress all this into the first episode. I suspect we'll also see Moiraine telling Egwene she can channel at the end of this episode, and they'll probably want to start in Baerlon in the second. 

[felice]

17 minutes ago, fionwe1987 said:

That's quite a lot, but it makes perfect sense to compress all this into the first episode. I suspect we'll also see Moiraine telling Egwene she can channel at the end of this episode, and they'll probably want to start in Baerlon in the second.

Perhaps a double-length first episode? 12 chapters plus the prologue is a lot of material to cover, and I think less disposable than a lot of the content of later books.

[Slurktan]

6 minutes ago, felice said:

Perhaps a double-length first episode? 12 chapters plus the prologue is a lot of material to cover, and I think less disposable than a lot of the content of later books.

To be quite frank, I highly doubt the Prologue from the book  will be in the pilot episode.  Probably deemed too confusing for witless people and such.  I could see them doing it however as one of the dreams Rand has in Baerlon made by Ishamael.

[Corvinus85]

2 hours ago, Slurktan said:

To be quite frank, I highly doubt the Prologue from the book  will be in the pilot episode.  Probably deemed too confusing for witless people and such.  I could see them doing it however as one of the dreams Rand has in Baerlon made by Ishamael.

Or they could do it like Jackson did on LOTR: have an intro with a narrator that gives you a quick rundown of the world, and jump in Lewis Therin's last moments (without all the dialogue between him and Ishamael), then the narrator goes further, mentioning the Breaking of the World, maybe a few more major events; fast forward 3000 years.

[The Anti-Targ]

5 hours ago, felice said:

Perhaps a double-length first episode? 12 chapters plus the prologue is a lot of material to cover, and I think less disposable than a lot of the content of later books.

Truth.

If WoT actually turns out to be good I will probably get an Amazon Prime sub for the duration just for that. But as much as I would love WoT to be good, I can't see myself spending the money. I hope I'm wrong.

[Slurktan]

4 hours ago, Corvinus said:

Or they could do it like Jackson did on LOTR: have an intro with a narrator that gives you a quick rundown of the world, and jump in Lewis Therin's last moments (without all the dialogue between him and Ishamael), then the narrator goes further, mentioning the Breaking of the World, maybe a few more major events; fast forward 3000 years.

I don't think you can do that in the same sense as was done in the LOTR movies (Bakshis included). Yes you could have a simple "the Dark One was freed and war eclipsed the world until the Dragon sealed him back up with a terrible price" but you can't really do much more than that.  You can't show the war because then you are showing sho wings (airplanes) and jo'cars(cars/tanks) and shocklances (laser guns).  Sure you could leave that out but that makes story beats later weaker and quite frankly makes WoT much more generic fantasy. If you left that stuff in the general viewer is going to be turned off.

If you put the prologue as a dream scene you could have more doubt of the Aes Sedai from it cause the trio would tell Moiraine and she'd give her version then later could have Thom tell Rand and Mat that the dream was accurate to what he knows etc.

[Astromech]

1 hour ago, Slurktan said:

I don't think you can do that in the same sense as was done in the LOTR movies (Bakshis included). Yes you could have a simple "the Dark One was freed and war eclipsed the world until the Dragon sealed him back up with a terrible price" but you can't really do much more than that.  You can't show the war because then you are showing sho wings (airplanes) and jo'cars(cars/tanks) and shocklances (laser guns).  Sure you could leave that out but that makes story beats later weaker and quite frankly makes WoT much more generic fantasy. If you left that stuff in the general viewer is going to be turned off.

If you put the prologue as a dream scene you could have more doubt of the Aes Sedai from it cause the trio would tell Moiraine and she'd give her version then later could have Thom tell Rand and Mat that the dream was accurate to what he knows etc.

They should have Thom Merrilin sing a song about it when he first visits Emond's Field as a gleeman.