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WHEEL OF TIME tv show: Go on,tug my braid!


AncalagonTheBlack

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Personally, the only ethnic features I can actually remember from the books are that the Aiel are tall redheads, and that Tuon is very black. If the show goes on long enough to bring her in, they really ought to keep that, but otherwise I'm not too bothered about the looks of the actors.

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You know, if you really wanted to save space, you could cut Perrin entirely and not lose much of substance from the main plot. Other than his role at Dumai's Wells, which could be played by Rhuarc, Berelain or Dobraine, he's kinda just off doing his own thing. I'd be fine with that tbh. I'm usually a stickler for staying true to the source material (it's why I don't even watch Game of Thrones any more) but Wheel of Time was always a frustrating series to be a fan of. It had lots of great build up, but precious little pay off. If they took an editing axe to this one they might actually make it better, rather than worse.

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8 minutes ago, Shaun Snow said:

You know, if you really wanted to save space, you could cut Perrin entirely and not lose much of substance from the main plot. Other than his role at Dumai's Wells, which could be played by Rhuarc, Berelain or Dobraine, he's kinda just off doing his own thing. I'd be fine with that tbh. I'm usually a stickler for staying true to the source material (it's why I don't even watch Game of Thrones any more) but Wheel of Time was always a frustrating series to be a fan of. It had lots of great build up, but precious little pay off. If they took an editing axe to this one they might actually make it better, rather than worse.

Well yes, you could also cut Mat the same way.  He isn't important to anything main plot wise at all; everything he does could just be done by random general or just Rand himself.  You could also cut Nyneave and Elayne using that same logic(that they aren't important to the main plot) and just keep it to Rand and Egwene.

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3 minutes ago, Slurktan said:

Well yes, you could also cut Mat the same way.  He isn't important to anything main plot wise at all; everything he does could just be done by random general or just Rand himself.  You could also cut Nyneave and Elayne using that same logic(that they aren't important to the main plot) and just keep it to Rand and Egwene.

I don't agree, Mat contributes quite a bit, from linking Shadar Logoth which helps cure the taint, to his rescues, to discovering gunpowder. His military exploits impact several plots and his connection to the Seanchan is curcial unless you want to cut them enturely. But Perrin? The Two Rivers sequences was cool and would be missed, but other than that and the aforementioned Dumai's Wells what do we lose? Slayer maybe, but he only interacts with Perrin anyway and could be cut alongside him.

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There are a few other crucial things Perrin does, namely one right at the end when Rand is trying to close the DO's prison.

And Perrin and his talent as a Wolfbrother is part of the world building. If you're not going to have him, why have others like Hurin, or the Travelling Stones, or why have Loial (you can just replace him with some guy who is a scholar to provide background knowledge, and thus save on makeup and special effects). 

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The thing with Lanfear could be solved by just not resurrecting her. That was another one of those things that RJ did which just went nowhere. I'm all for paying little heed to the details in WOT, those ones you list could be cut too, along with stuff like Domon and Egeanin, or the 100 odd Aes Sedai that all shared the same personality but got pages worth of screentime anyway. Though Perrin's removal would free up the biggest amount of space with the least amount of loss, IMO.

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I think at some point you have to ask what people will be expecting when they tune into a Wheel of Time TV show, and I think the #1 thing they will be expecting will be the main characters from TEotW (Rand, Mat, Perrin, Egwene, Nynaeve, Moiraine, Lan, Thom), and then some of the other key characters later on (Elayne, Siuan, Aviendha, Rhuarc, Min, Elaida, Morgase, Lanfear, Ishamael/Ba'alzamon, Padan Fain). Sure, when you get to Rebel Aes Sedai #137 you can start chopping and condensing, but the key original characters I think have to be there.

I mean, Padan Fain should almost certainly be cut for doing absolutely bugger all after about Book 7, but he does have a role to play earlier (I certainly wouldn't be amiss to him dying though when Rand confronts him in Haddon Mirk).

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1 hour ago, Shaun Snow said:

I don't agree, Mat contributes quite a bit, from linking Shadar Logoth which helps cure the taint, to his rescues, to discovering gunpowder. His military exploits impact several plots and his connection to the Seanchan is curcial unless you want to cut them enturely. But Perrin? The Two Rivers sequences was cool and would be missed, but other than that and the aforementioned Dumai's Wells what do we lose? Slayer maybe, but he only interacts with Perrin anyway and could be cut alongside him.

Rand also goes to Shadar Logoth.  Mat isn't needed for that.  Neither is Mat needed for Gunpowder.  He doesn't invent it after all in the books.  As for Tuon, that could absolutely be cut as in the end it has the same relevance to the overall plot as Perrin wiping out the Shaido.  Not much.  What else does Mat do that couldn't be done by a general like Agalmar?  Much like Perrin, Mat just wanders around for 3 books in 9/10/11 his sections are just seen as more entertaining as he's more happy go lucky then dour Perrin.  Unlike Perrin he doesn't really do anything in 12/13/14 that could not have somebody else doing it.

Now don't get me wrong, I would cut neither of them or the Ladies.  But saying Perrin has lesser plot relevance than Mat is just silly.  Hell I could even see them keeping Mat to just have him actually die in the adaptions of 4 or 5 to add some stakes.  Yes he does actually die in 5 but I mean not rescued by balefire.

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We'll have to agree to disagree on their respective importances. The simple truth is that I don't much care for getting a faithful adaption of WOT, I'd like a better one. It's always been a series I hesitate to recommend to people, being half great and half awful. Unlike with ASOIAF, there's little I can think of that I'd be completely against changing if I thought it would lead to a better final product. Just so long as they don't replace the Aiel history flashbacks with five minutes of Rand and Mat talking about some random guy back in Emond's Field who had a hard-on for crushing beetles. Heck, if we need to keep Perrin in order to not lose the fanbase, maybe we can give him something to do that touches on the other characters more. Maybe have more wolfkin and give them a crucial role in the war of somekind, I dunno. Better than fighting round three against an army that really should have just been wiped out at Dumai's Wells anyway.

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If they cut Perrin, they might as well make a completely different story set in the world, or something.

There's just no way cutting the Two Rivers storyling in Shadow Rising makes sense. There's no available character to simply take over that role. And the reemergence of the Two Rivers, and the role it plays later is a pretty decent sub-arc in the books, that suffers massively without Perrin.

Even the Faile capture arc is worth having. It drags a lot, and there's some truly unneeded repetition post-Sanderson in Perrin's arc, but those can easily be cleaned up in the show. 

The bigger issue is the Shaido. I don't think it makes much sense to have them around after Dumai's Wells. One possible way to deal with that is to enhance Masema's role and have his followers capture Faile. That might work. 

Or, since nothing truly concrete comes of the Perrin-Seanchan alliance, maybe have them capture Faile. Having Mat "kidnap" the Seanchan ruler, and marry her, while Perrin's wife is kidnapped by the Seanchan, making him wage a war against them, might spice things up. Maybe Perrin is sent to make an alliance with the Seanchan by Rand, but when they kidnap Faile, Perrin tosses all that over, and this causes a serious setback to any future alliance with the Seanchan. That might work.

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Cutting Perrin is cutting one of the main three characters.... I get the Faile hate, but I think it's more a product of the storyline being stretched rather than it being "bad". 

In terms of Indian Mythology, Rand is the Destroyer, Matt is the Preserver, and Perrin is the Builder. We need all three.

Besides, I quite liked Perrin back in the day. Especially during Shadow Rising. His returning home arc really resonated with me back in the early nineties, as I had spent quite a lot of time traveling abroad and found returning home unexpectedly hard.

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4 hours ago, Myrddin said:

Cutting Perrin is cutting one of the main three characters.... I get the Faile hate, but I think it's more a product of the storyline being stretched rather than it being "bad". 

In terms of Indian Mythology, Rand is the Destroyer, Matt is the Preserver, and Perrin is the Builder. We need all three.

Besides, I quite liked Perrin back in the day. Especially during Shadow Rising. His returning home arc really resonated with me back in the early nineties, as I had spent quite a lot of time traveling abroad and found returning home unexpectedly hard.

For me, I get the Faile hate not at all. People forget that a lot of what they hate her for is stuff Perrin smells, not actual words or actions of hers. If you cannot even feel jealous or angry... 

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35 minutes ago, fionwe1987 said:

For me, I get the Faile hate not at all. People forget that a lot of what they hate her for is stuff Perrin smells, not actual words or actions of hers. If you cannot even feel jealous or angry... 

Speaking of Faile, it's going to hard to cast someone with a hawk nose. That's a very specific physical feature. Prosthetic? 

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47 minutes ago, Myrddin said:

Speaking of Faile, it's going to hard to cast someone with a hawk nose. That's a very specific physical feature. Prosthetic? 

Hooked nose? Not all that rare, is it?

An actress I always pictured, as Faile:

https://bizasialivecom-6bb5.kxcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/SohaAliKhan.jpg

She doesn't have her tilted eyes, though. 

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That's a good shot. An actress like her would work. 

Nose is more important than eyes just from the prophesy point of view. 

Can't believe I'm posting about noses... :lol: 

I won't be this critical when the show airs, I promise.

 

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16 hours ago, fionwe1987 said:

The bigger issue is the Shaido. I don't think it makes much sense to have them around after Dumai's Wells. One possible way to deal with that is to enhance Masema's role and have his followers capture Faile. That might work. 

It can always be a Forsaken. Masema was used by a Forsaken. Too many times it's just Rand, and sometimes Nynaeve, taking the Forsaken on. Of course, that's because of their power, but they could have Perrin directly involved in fighting against the schemes of a Forsaken in Ghealdan/Amadicia and he teams up with the Seanchen to save his wife and take down that Forsaken.

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8 hours ago, Myrddin said:

Cutting Perrin is cutting one of the main three characters.... I get the Faile hate, but I think it's more a product of the storyline being stretched rather than it being "bad". 

Ha. Jordan played some nice bait-and-switch there. Although it's set up in Book 1 that way, I think the way it falls out over all the books it's that the main characters are Rand and Egwene. They have the strongest through-lines through the whole series and the contrasting ways they handle their storylines makes them the main protagonists (even when they're mostly missing from a book, like Rand in Book 3 and Egwene in Book 9). The male-female, order-chaos duality motif also favours making them the two main characters. Perrin, Mat, Elayne, Aviendha, Moiraine, Nynaeve and maybe a few others are then a notch below them.

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2 hours ago, Werthead said:

Ha. Jordan played some nice bait-and-switch there. Although it's set up in Book 1 that way, I think the way it falls out over all the books it's that the main characters are Rand and Egwene. They have the strongest through-lines through the whole series and the contrasting ways they handle their storylines makes them the main protagonists (even when they're mostly missing from a book, like Rand in Book 3 and Egwene in Book 9). The male-female, order-chaos duality motif also favours making them the two main characters. Perrin, Mat, Elayne, Aviendha, Moiraine, Nynaeve and maybe a few others are then a notch below them.

Of the others, Nynaeve a notch above, I think. She has always a lot to do, and her arc also has a kind of through line, though she's part of Rand's or Egwene's or Elayne's story sometimes.

I think if RJ had done a better job with all his ideas for Perrin and the Tinkers, it would have made his arc more interesting. As it is, it meanfered off and died an ignominious death. 

 

And yes, a Forsaken, one who primarily uses the World of Dreams, would work as an antagonist for Perrin.

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