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THE WHEEL OF TIME TV Show: The braid tugs, as the writing wills [BOOK SPOILERS]


Corvinus85

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1 hour ago, fionwe1987 said:

Then why are we assuming he was setting skin color?

I didn't say skin color. But it's quite obvious he imagines the Two Rivers as being identifably Caucasian.

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Which is why he went from actors from very different times.

I take something different from that. He apparently specified "young" or "old" versions as appropriate, which is obviously for appearance reasons rather than personality reasons. He's definitely matching something about the visual impression of those actors at those periods of time to those characters in his notes. All the Two Rivers actors, and the majority of the characters, are to him modelled after, or perhaps have suggested to him, a bunch of white actors for some reason...

 

57 minutes ago, fionwe1987 said:

While Andorans are usually fair-skinned, there is a lot of variety among Andorans regarding skin color. And, in general, Two Rivers folk are darker-skinned Andorans.

That's right. Based on RJ's notes and other indications, I would have expected a lot of Mediterranean/Southern European/Latino actors for the Two Rivers, but apparently not. But then I admit I've taken against Judkins ever since he claimed he'd fix Faile. :P

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So, I have spent many an hour debating this in Serbian, so I will just sum up my impressions. Simply, I am in "OK, that's somewhat good casting" pack.

I think the issue of this latent racism needs to be addressed. Not by Amazon or WoT production but by industry itself. Art can be color blind. Shakespeare or Chekhov are being adapted in theaters all over the world, often not "respecting" the characters' skin color. So, yes, having a black Romeo or IDK, Asian Hamlet is not actually beyond belief. Furthermore, in opera and ballet, you have numerous examples. Ballet is still considered Russian/European/white form of art, but you have someone like Misty Copeland who played everything there is, from Giselle to Nutcracker. That said, trust me, that doesn't mean there is no racism in ballet, because there is and Bolshoi directors and choreographers had been known to discriminate few black dancers that have found their way to the most prestigious ballet school in the world. So, why is there so much fuss when WoT casting is in question?

The first thing, and I understand @Ran here is that it seems that worldbuilding has been thrown out. For all of us who had to endure eight seasons of ASOIAF worldbuilding and plots being ignored by D&D and GoT, it is almost hauntingly familiar when the first news of WoT casting go against what we, as readers, have perceived them to be. And, what, if we are all to be fair, author himself intended them to be. 

But, then again, we all have to remember what is the essence of these characters. Skin color most certainly isn't. This isn't "Selma", or "Lee Daniels' The Butler". Yes, visually, it may be different to us, but I suppose that is OK. I am not really bothered by it and I am far more concerned what will get thrown or ignored when it comes to many other aspects of WoT. 

As I said to someone, I would have preferred having Lupita N'yongo playing my favorite ASOIAF character, Sansa Stark and do Martin's Sansa justice then having beautiful white red-haired girl who was directed into becoming "Cersei 2.0" I haven't fallen in love with red-hair or white skin. I have fallen in love with "ivory, porcelain, steel skin of Northern she-wolf" :wub:

So, let's just hope some important things will be remembered and honored by Amazon's team. 

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7 hours ago, Ran said:

But then I admit I've taken against Judkins ever since he claimed he'd fix Faile. :P

I hadn't heard that, but he's now risen in my estimation! :p

 

But seriously - I do admire things about Faile, but her and Perrin as a couple has always been nails on a chalkboard. Sadly Faile gets all the hate for it because PERRIN!, but if Judd wants to improve on how they were presented, I'm all for it.

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1 hour ago, Gertrude said:

I hadn't heard that, but he's now risen in my estimation! :p

 

But seriously - I do admire things about Faile, but her and Perrin as a couple has always been nails on a chalkboard. Sadly Faile gets all the hate for it because PERRIN!, but if Judd wants to improve on how they were presented, I'm all for it.

Take away Perrin smelling Faile's jealousy, or anger in the later books, and hey presto, she becomes a reasonable, kick-ass, mature adult, while Perrin becomes a whiny, possessive tool.

Book 4 Faile was a bit assholey. She got good post their marriage, and Perring just got really bad once his smell senses got better.

 

I think things will be much better in the show.

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9 hours ago, Ran said:

I didn't say skin color. But it's quite obvious he imagines the Two Rivers as being identifably Caucasian.

Demonstrably not, though. Rahvin, who is very dark skinned, claimed to be a Lord from Western Andor without raising anyone's eyebrows. Including Mat's, who is from Western Andor.

The founding queen of Andor is as dark skinned as the darkest skin people's we know of in WoT. 

Now maybe I'm wrong, and Caucasian encompasses people of very dark skin. But that's certainly not how I've understood the term. But as for the facial features of the Andorans.... We really have nothing from the books that says Caucasian. 

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I take something different from that. He apparently specified "young" or "old" versions as appropriate, which is obviously for appearance reasons rather than personality reasons.

Not really. The place actors have in your mind depends on the characters they play. And that can and does change with age.

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He's definitely matching something about the visual impression of those actors at those periods of time to those characters in his notes. All the Two Rivers actors, and the majority of the characters, are to him modelled after, or perhaps have suggested to him, a bunch of white actors for some reason...

They plain don't match his book descriptions, then. 

 

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That's right. Based on RJ's notes and other indications, I would have expected a lot of Mediterranean/Southern European/Latino actors for the Two Rivers, but apparently not. But then I admit I've taken against Judkins ever since he claimed he'd fix Faile.

:P

Ha. I actually believe that'll be fairly easy to assume.

For me, the fact that Egwene is his favorite character made me give him a lot of points. I'm hopeful, honestly, that he'll do well.

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20 hours ago, Risto said:

The first thing, and I understand @Ran here is that it seems that worldbuilding has been thrown out. For all of us who had to endure eight seasons of ASOIAF worldbuilding and plots being ignored by D&D and GoT, it is almost hauntingly familiar when the first news of WoT casting go against what we, as readers, have perceived them to be. And, what, if we are all to be fair, author himself intended them to be. 

But, then again, we all have to remember what is the essence of these characters. Skin color most certainly isn't. This isn't "Selma", or "Lee Daniels' The Butler". Yes, visually, it may be different to us, but I suppose that is OK. I am not really bothered by it and I am far more concerned what will get thrown or ignored when it comes to many other aspects of WoT. 

As I said to someone, I would have preferred having Lupita N'yongo playing my favorite ASOIAF character, Sansa Stark and do Martin's Sansa justice then having beautiful white red-haired girl who was directed into becoming "Cersei 2.0" I haven't fallen in love with red-hair or white skin. I have fallen in love with "ivory, porcelain, steel skin of Northern she-wolf" :wub:

I'm not sure I'd equate world building with character skin tone. If lots of visual details get changed then sure, I'd agree with you. Otherwise these casting choices we've seen so far don't do anything to make me think they're going to neglect the world building aspect of the story.

And as far as Lupita N'yongo goes, she would be great for the role of Tuan imo.

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14 hours ago, fionwe1987 said:

Take away Perrin smelling Faile's jealousy, or anger in the later books, and hey presto, she becomes a reasonable, kick-ass, mature adult, while Perrin becomes a whiny, possessive tool.

Yeah it'll be interesting to see what they do with Perrin, especially regarding his relationship with Faile. Because you're right, so much of the inner workings of Perrin's character are shown to us through his enhanced sense of smell later on in the books that without that he starts to feel very flat or at least obtuse.

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25 minutes ago, Astromech said:

How will they convey the dice rolling in Mat's head? :) 

Haha yeah. But seriously though, they're gonna have to figure out a way to convey his "luck" right? I mean his biggest attribute and the reason he does pretty much everything is because he's just lucky...

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I really don't think you can draw many conclusions from RJ picturing white actors for the roles when Hollywood was *very* white. He could hardly be picturing many of the actors who had never been given a break anyway, and the handful of those that managed to break through anyway tended to have very specific types of roles they'd been pigeon holed in.

Re: The rolling dice - its actually a good question. His good luck generally can be done via conversations after the fact etc, but its an awareness of something momentous about to happen. Depending on how tightly we're pulled into character viewpoints it could be done via a subtle backing audio cue or even a colour grading trick. It might be confusing the first few times but there's plenty of time to get used to it. If we're getting more of an omniscient point of view then I really don't know how you'd bring it in.

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11 minutes ago, karaddin said:

Re: The rolling dice - its actually a good question. His good luck generally can be done via conversations after the fact etc, but its an awareness of something momentous about to happen. Depending on how tightly we're pulled into character viewpoints it could be done via a subtle backing audio cue or even a colour grading trick. It might be confusing the first few times but there's plenty of time to get used to it. If we're getting more of an omniscient point of view then I really don't know how you'd bring it in.

Smarter people than me will decide how to accomplish this but my initial thought to your supposition is it will need to be done through dialogue. Even a very subtle visual or sound que could come off as cheesy. 

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On 8/17/2019 at 10:28 PM, fionwe1987 said:

Take away Perrin smelling Faile's jealousy, or anger in the later books, and hey presto, she becomes a reasonable, kick-ass, mature adult, while Perrin becomes a whiny, possessive tool.

Nah, they're both kinda immature for a lot of the books - and they are young, no shame in that. They grow just as all the young characters do. I just don't want a front row seat to their teen drama. They both needed to communicate better and not assume things about each other instead of just being confused or disappointed. Aside from the time they spend together in the Two Rivers, I don't enjoy their relationship. (and the trip to Two Rivers through the Ways definitely doesn't count as one of the good parts.)

1 hour ago, Joey Crows said:

Smarter people than me will decide how to accomplish this but my initial thought to your supposition is it will need to be done through dialogue. Even a very subtle visual or sound que could come off as cheesy. 

I would think a musical cue that fits into Mat's theme (cause you know they will all have their own musical themes) would work best. Imagine a  subtle drum beat that starts and stops on cue and time it with a reaction from Mat (a pause, a sigh, dialogue when appropriate). Maybe it's a sound effect, but if it's subtle and blends with the musical theme, sure, fine. But like you said, people smarter than me are getting paid to think about this, so I'm sure it'll be fine.

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28 minutes ago, Gertrude said:
1 hour ago, Joey Crows said:

 

I would think a musical cue that fits into Mat's theme (cause you know they will all have their own musical themes) would work best. Imagine a  subtle drum beat that starts and stops on cue and time it with a reaction from Mat (a pause, a sigh, dialogue when appropriate). Maybe it's a sound effect, but if it's subtle and blends with the musical theme, sure, fine. But like you said, people smarter than me are getting paid to think about this, so I'm sure it'll be fine.

See I picture that going poorly. Musical themes for characters can be great. Like in Doctor Who when the Doctor is about to do something awesome and his musical theme swells behind the action it really puts the viewers in a mindset. But if the cue is part of the narrative, and needs the character to either acknowledge it in some way or react because of it, then that feels manufactured. Just my thought on it ;) 

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5 hours ago, Gertrude said:

I would think a musical cue that fits into Mat's theme (cause you know they will all have their own musical themes) would work best. Imagine a  subtle drum beat that starts and stops on cue and time it with a reaction from Mat (a pause, a sigh, dialogue when appropriate). Maybe it's a sound effect, but if it's subtle and blends with the musical theme, sure, fine. But like you said, people smarter than me are getting paid to think about this, so I'm sure it'll be fine.

Yeah, I'm thinking something that we're introduced to as part of his theme but can be teased out on its own, so when we first hear it we think its just his theme playing before it slowly becomes apparent that its more than that. And I don't think character themes have to be bombastic or obvious and are present a lot more than you realise they are.

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9 hours ago, Gertrude said:

Nah, they're both kinda immature for a lot of the books - and they are young, no shame in that. They grow just as all the young characters do. I just don't want a front row seat to their teen drama. They both needed to communicate better and not assume things about each other instead of just being confused or disappointed. Aside from the time they spend together in the Two Rivers, I don't enjoy their relationship. (and the trip to Two Rivers through the Ways definitely doesn't count as one of the good parts.)

Oh I wouldn't say she's the most mature person or anything. But a lot of her "reactions" that come across as immature are things Perrin smells, but that she doesn't give voice to at all.

I think a flash of jealousy or anger is hardly wrong, if you have the ability to control it and not let it show in your actions. I can remember so many times when Faile is doing the mature thing, but Perrin can smell that inside, she's hurt/angry/jealous, and acts accordingly, further worsening the situation.

And as readers, we things from his perspective. His sense of smell is woven into his PoV, so we quickly find ourselves accepting it as reality. But we really shouldn't be judging someone by their thoughts, especially when their actions show that they're able to control those thoughts and NOT act on them.

This isn't to say Faile is perfect. Or that she doesn't ever act immature. But you ignore what Perrin smells and she comes across so much more mature, and far less hateable. It's something I only noticed in my third reread or something. Once I did, it's really hard to unsee, and I wish Brandon had actually done something with it, like have Perrin realize that as real as those smells are to him, it's unreasonably to expect Faile to control her innermost thoughts and feelings for him. 

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15 hours ago, karaddin said:

Depending on how tightly we're pulled into character viewpoints it could be done via a subtle backing audio cue or even a colour grading trick. It might be confusing the first few times but there's plenty of time to get used to it. If we're getting more of an omniscient point of view then I really don't know how you'd bring it in.

I'd be surprised if we don't go into character viewpoint when appropriate. Most notably there's the weaving of the One Power, which channellers can see but normal people can't. They'll surely have to show the actual weaves sometimes!

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59 minutes ago, felice said:

I'd be surprised if we don't go into character viewpoint when appropriate. Most notably there's the weaving of the One Power, which channellers can see but normal people can't. They'll surely have to show the actual weaves sometimes!

I doubt they'll be showing it in a viewpoint dependent manner. I suspect the weaves will be shown to us always, but only other channelers will notice or react to the weaves, while others only react to the results, if they're visible.

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