The Wheel of Time: Another Turning (No Book Spoilers)

[Arakasi]

Spoiler

Edit: the ways don’t make much sense in the book either and stop being a used plot point fairly on in the series. First couple books are filled with things like that that just ended up going nowhere.

As for the battle it was about a tree lol.

But yeah I wish that scene had started with a view of the valley below and a battle going on to her creating the ridge escaping the battle. I know that would have been an expensive special effect but it would have at least shown better she was escaping a battle.

[Ran]

1 hour ago, Arakasi said:

Spoiler

the ways don’t make much sense in the book either and stop being a used plot point fairly on in the series.

 

Spoiler

Don't know what you're talking about. They play a role in the story as late as Knife of Dreams.

 

[Zorral]

Please?  We don't talk about the books in this thread, right?  For several reasons, because any discussion that brings in the books becomes a morass of book stuff, instead of the show as a show, and its good qualities, and/or lack of them.

Among the latter, if one of the actors was leaving the show I'm glad it was the one who played Mat, who insisted on swallowing so many of his syllables one hardly knew what he was saying beyond garble. 

Also among the latter, I do agree with the poster above who wanted a better introduction to the socko opening, because, the way it was done, it didn't provide any sizzleto the  Big Reveal.  Now they managed that, I'm guessing because through the episodes the Dragon, n egg, dead, reborn, just farting around, hasn't had any actual reality, despite the gelded guy last episode. It's been we had any reason to care about, even if the Tower does.  And the Dark One, or whatever Sauron is called here, hasn't been cast as anything to be concerned about either.  Trollocks and other monsters attacking people, sure, and we're told they're run like the orcs were by Sauron.  But really, there's no sense of most likely an overwhelming doom taking over the world, which Peter Jackson certainly provided in his LOtR.

I felt more frisson at the discovery that Lan's father had been a king, and lot more when he and Nynaeve carried on a genuine conversation about matters that mattered to them both as they get to know each other.

[Arakasi]

Spoiler

Spoiler here from books.

[spoiler]We see them here in book one this one time. Then they get used 3 books later in TSR where Perrin uses them to get back to the two rivers. Then like 6 more books later there is a chapter where Rand sends Loial to shutdown the gates because trollocs are using them to travel. After Perrins use the good guys don’t use them because it’s like taking a bus when they have airplanes (gate platforms) or teleportation (travelling) The only reason they serve any purpose is the author made a special condition that shadowspawn using them die if they travel so the poor bad guys have to use the bus. As far as the good guys go they don’t care about them. Why should they they all can teleport! It just turns into a logistics tax on baddies and all of the ramifications of that logistic happen offscreen.[/spoiler]

Book spoilers here on ways.

[Zorral]

I forgot to add, that among the things the show does well, it seems to me, is the casting of the older characters -- the actors really fill the figures they play, making them feel very real.  I loved Min, for instance, in this episode, and even though we hardly saw them, I love Lan's 'adoptee' family.

This has been mostly pleasant, entertaining watching, without much insertion of intensity of any kind.  The torture scene of Perrin and Egwene was a massive exception. 

Or, I dunno, maybe the utter lack of frisson with the Big Reveal is because with the very first episode bookers spoiled what it was for the nonbookers.

[DaveSumm]

14 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Among the latter, if one of the actors was leaving the show I'm glad it was the one who played Mat, who insisted on swallowing so many of his syllables one hardly knew what he was saying beyond garble.

This is quite interesting to me; I’ve mentioned on a few threads about a few shows that so many English accents in US productions don’t sound authentic to me. They sound middle class but with an upper-middle class emphasis on hard consonants; ‘waited’ instead of ‘wai-ed’. The US doesn’t have this issue as your Ts are pronounced as soft Ds. It comes across to me as a ‘best behaviour’ voice, like they’re meeting their partner’s parents for the first time and want to make a good impression.

I really enjoyed Barney Harris partly because he didn’t do this, and he came across so much more relaxed in the role to me. My theory is that Americans aren’t used to this actually-middle-class accent so maybe it’s harder to parse.

Then of course, there’s the possibility that he was just possessed and exhausted most of his screen time and everything I’ve just said is complete bollocks.

[Arakasi]

Sorry about the spoilers there wasn’t my intention. I do think the show will suffer from having to add in iconic things from the books while they were iconic the first time they’re used didn’t get consistently get used enough. Zarral makes a good point that special magic stuff or plots like battles need explanation and if you don’t have time to do it it comes off flat. You really need to explain it and if you don’t have time for that it won’t come off well. They really need to choose the plot points and magic wisely so they can develop them.

[Gertrude]

6 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

 My theory is that Americans aren’t used to this actually-middle-class accent so maybe it’s harder to parse.

I admit, it was hard to make out what he was saying sometimes, but I usually turn on CC for just such occasions. To me, it sounded like he had a mouth full of marbles. Loved his performance, that was my only criticism (which is obviously not universal)

[Which Tyler]

15 hours ago, Zorral said:

Please?  We don't talk about the books in this thread, right?  For several reasons, because any discussion that brings in the books becomes a morass of book stuff, instead of the show as a show, and its good qualities, and/or lack of them.

Hear hear - espeically as there's already a thread for discussing show vs book

15 hours ago, DaveSumm said:

I really enjoyed Barney Harris partly because he didn’t do this, and he came across so much more relaxed in the role to me. My theory is that Americans aren’t used to this actually-middle-class accent so maybe it’s harder to parse.

Hear hear - nothing garbled about his speech, just English.
Ever since a certain party in Boston, we English have learned to hide our 'T's around Americans

[Zorral]

They lost me. Couldn’t make sense of it.  Not to mention how cheesy it looked.  All those millions$ and this is what they gave us. Meh. Pike gave us her all, and she was great, but it didn't help.

[Infidel]

Man, that was a mess of a finale....the weakness of the main cast is starting to tell, I think.

 

Not sure if book spoiler questions, be wary....

Spoiler

I thought the flaming eye dude was one of the Forsaken, not the actual Dark One? Are we supposed to figure out that Rand blasted Ishamael (?) rather than the Big Bad?

Presumably the horn of whatever was the entire reason for the attack on Fal Dara?

 

 

[karaddin]

That's definitely book spoiler territory so to everyone else don't read it and this if you don't want to know

Spoiler

In the books that is Ishamael but no one, including him*, is aware of it for a considerable amount of book time beyond where we are now. Rand definitely is under the impression it's the dark one he's fighting, not a Forsaken

*Ishamael wasn't properly sealed away unlike the rest of the Forsaken. He's aware of the passage of time which makes the 3000 years agonizingly slow for him, but is able to reach out and meddle at times causing havoc. By this point he has completely lost touch with reality and thinks he is the dark one.

The retrieval of the horn of valere is so significantly different from the books that I'm hesitant to assume book spoilers even apply so probably easier to just explain:

In the books, the titular "Eye of the World" is an object not just a place. It's a literal pool/lake of pure one power in liquid form and was intended to be used against the dark one. The climax sees Rand and a different Forsaken (named Aginor) both drawing on it and struggling for control with Aginor being a complete chump and burning himself out. Rand then uses it's power to travel (read: teleport) to Tarwins gap and smite the trolloc army, saving the Shienaran army, and drains the reservoir entirely. At the bottom of the now drained eye of the world they find the horn of valere, and a much smaller version of the broken seal (the object with the ying & yang symbol).

This ending doesn't really fit the longer story as it was written in case he only got the one book and I'm confident he would have reworked it heavily if he'd been rewriting it after finishing the series.

Padan Fain then steals the horn at the start of the next book.

This part isn't book spoilers, it's entirely what's in the show but I'm not sure I would have noticed the details without the book knowledge so throwing it in a spoiler box to play it safe

Spoiler

The dark one smirks as Rand blasts him, and my interpretation of the events on the show is that the whole situation is orchestrated to lure Rand into a trap and break this seal. The traps were layered such that Rand would think he had resisted the trap, but that was just the obvious honey pot in the middle and the actual trap didn't matter what he did - it was just getting him to use a big chunk of power in that location to break the seal.

With this interpretation there was never really a fight at the eye in the first place and the dark one couldn't be hurt in this fashion.

 

[john]

I was certainly confused as to what they expect non readers to think of the conclusion. Seemed like Rand killed the Dark One and then Moiraine said he didn’t actually kill him, though why Rand thought shining a bright light at him in a dream until he disappeared would kill him I don’t know.

Spoiler

There has been references to the forsaken but they’re pretty subtle so I’m not sure a casual audience would pick up on the idea that this weird guy in a suit must be a human adversary rather than the personification of evil portrayed in an odd way.

of course, if they had done the prologue from the books, which every single fan wanted them to do, it would have featured Ishmael and the viewer would know immediately that Rand had the wrong end of the stick.

 

[Zorral]

If one has to know what's in the books to know what's going on the show has massively failed.

[Arakasi]

My biggest issue with the series (other than production issues with scale and things looking small. For example it’s clear they have not been able to bring in many extras to make the scenes look more populated) is they’re trying to both make a coherent show and trying to including all the fanservice/iconic items/cast from the show when they clearly don’t have room for both in the 8 episode seasons they’ve been given.

Now sure they could and should have cut 20 minutes from episode five on Steppin and just dropped that to a scene with him and Lan mourning Karrine and then him dying and then wrapping it up but episode five could have given much needed time to Rand and Mat and allowed Egwene and Perrin to be the main focus of the episode.

But even getting past that it wouldn’t fix their main issue which is they’re not giving time to let things develop more. You can’t really have a show with 6 main characters unless you’re really willing to focus on stuff. I thought they did a reasonable job of explaining Shadar Logoth but it’s a bit confusing what the start of episode seven means since you have no idea why she is fighting. Similarly the ways don’t really get explained much. The horn comes out of left field. (Although it sorta does in the books too) And then there is stuff in the last episode that needed better explanation/clarification.

I’m willing to give them a bit of a mulligan for having to deal with Barney (Mat) bailing on the show and having to rewrite stuff but they really need to tighten things up in the next series. Focus on the main characters, minimize the use of unexplained magic things and cut all the extra shit to make it more coherent. They’re doing it like a highlight real now which makes sense for the people who have the context of the books. But for those who haven’t I’m sure it’s confusing. It’s clear Amazon isn’t giving them enough money or time to do the scale Jordans story is to so I think they need to focus on a subset of it and then do that well.

[Jace, Extat]

Trust me, there are no highlights in this for book readers. They're just not good at the whole writing thing at all.

[Prince Yourwetdream Aeryn]

The finale tried to get watchers excited then droped off all excitement (battle against Dark One, Nynaeve's death, horn stuff, etc). If it was historical series I would get excited to see Viking girls at the end but why I should care magicians attacking previously unmentioned location? Or black market guy being Dark One's follower is big reveal? I don't think so.

[Arakasi]

37 minutes ago, Babblebauble said:

Trust me, there are no highlights in this for book readers. They're just not good at the whole writing thing at all.

I disagree (and so does Sanderson and other WoT fans I respect). The quality of the writing isn’t really the issue (other than parts of the last episode) and tbh the guy who wrote the books was no Martin either. Most of the dialogue in the books don’t work for real people saying it. Jordan all the time introduced plot elements that got dropped or didn’t matter for like 5 books.
 

The pacing (and production) is the issue. First six episodes set them up for a good ten episode season. Clearly they didn’t have that. They are not willing to make hard cuts on characters or plot points or macguffins to make it fit into an 8 episode season. The horn and ways and rands mom all should have been teased in the first six episodes if they wanted to use them in the last two.

To me the quality of the writing isn’t an issue so much as what they’re choosing to include or not. I talked to many people who were very moved by the Steppin plot more than anything else in the season (or the book even). So it clearly worked for a lot of people but at the same time it’s a zero sum game and that plot hurt the development of the main stars. All it showed us was some development of Lan and warders but then Lan has been underused since and they haven’t followed up on it.

[Zorral]

I enjoyed the show quite a bit, was happy to watch it -- until the two last episodes, when it all fell apart.  Did that happen really because one of the actors quit?  That doesn't really cut it though, since the last two episodes were supposed to be, sort of anyway, focused on the Dragon Reborn, and o lordessa did that stick the landing, do a loop de loop and smash itself against the cliff.

[Arakasi]

I think it definitely affected the Perrin arc. I don’t think it would have changed what Rand did but all the Rand and Moiraine stuff was the best part of the last two episodes and imo was quite good. I actually thought episode seven was quite strong. And so do fans. In the Sanderson live stream it was voted favorite episode of the season. 
 

Main problems with episode eight is they clearly don’t have the budget or cgi or extras to make a really epic battle. I think it would have been better to just not show it than only show something average. That also ties into the Egwene and Nynaeve parts because the battle was by far the weakest part of the story. Perrin and Fain were fine and Rand and Moiraine were great.

I was thinking about what parts make WoT the books stand out to me and number one is epic. It’s clear their budget or production is failing in that regard. They better fix it.