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The Wheel of Time: Jane Farstrider Herself (Book Spoilers)


Ran

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31 minutes ago, IFR said:

Rand gets so carried away with trying to be the stoic whipping boy of the world that when he breaks it becomes highly destructive. He forgets to laugh and cry, nearly to the world's undoing. I think Jordan did a good job exploring a culture of trauma where there isn't an outlet for release, but it is all internalized.

By going the "sensitive warrior" route, the writers are going to potentially undermine this.

That's right! I had a vague recollection of this, and Linda (who's finished re-reading the series) reminded me of this aspect of things. It's a genuinely interesting contribution Lan's character makes to the story of the series, though obviously it goes in directions he didn't intend as Rand takes it too far. 

If Lan isn't a character who can convey that sort of maxim to Rand, and inadvertently convince Rand that he has to close his feelings without any kind of outlet or balance, then that's a change to a pretty deep dynamic.

Also have to underscore that Jordan was a veteran, and a decorated one at that -- a Bronze Star with a "v" indicating it was due to valor in combat -- and I think one has to engage with his depiction of a soldier's mentality, post-traumtic stress, etc. through the lens of someone who had seen combat and had seen horrors (e.g. Jordan remarks of a photo of himself eating his rations while seated on a log beside several Vietcong corpses; it was just the most convenient place to sit, and he was unfazed by the bodies; or his remark on knowing he had killed a female Vietcong soldier in the course of a firefight.)

So when people dismiss this sort of thing or just treat it as cliche or toxic, they're dismissing one man's very personal, very lived experience of combat and war and how one reacts to it and engages with it on a behavioral and moral level.

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Alternatively, Rand could still do all that - because of Rand, not because he learned it from Lan.

After all some people develop personalities of their very ownsome, without having to have tried to carbon copy it from someone else.

 

A third alternative could be that Rand's an idiot kid, who misinterpret's Lan's personality, and tries to be the person he mistakenly believes Lan to be.

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Just now, Which Tyler said:

Alternatively, Rand could still do all that - because of Rand, not because he learned it from Lan.

This is inherently less interesting than someone developing an idea through interaction, but sure. Just chopping away at character inter-relationships is one way to go about it.

 

1 minute ago, Which Tyler said:

A third alternative could be that Rand's an idiot kid, who misinterpret's Lan's personality, and tries to be the person he mistakenly believes Lan to be.

Better, though we have to establish the idea that Lan is that sort of person whereas right now he's just skilled warrior guy. 

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Aforementioned image leaks.

Spoiler

Agelmar, Amalisa, Min and Lews Therin Atreides, from the look of it.

1 minute ago, Which Tyler said:

Chopping away at... just about everything is absolutely essential.

We're trying to fit 460-odd hours of reading material into 48ish hours of watching material

64, probably, but yes, they have the problem of taking a narrative almost three times longer than A Song of Ice and Fire-as-published-so-far and fitting it into fewer episodes then Game of Thrones. Certain story lines - if not every - storyline - is going to have to be curtailed as a result. One solution is to start characters further along their emotional arcs than they were in the books.

They also have a bigger problem than GoT ever had in that the source material is 1) much more qualitatively uneven and 2) even RJ wasn't all that keen on Book 1 of his source material, feeling it had been compromised heavily from his original vision editorially, whilst just about everyone seems to agree that AGoT is one of the two best ASoIaF novels (maybe three), and was written with a much more compatible-for-TV structure.

 

Quote

 

So when people dismiss this sort of thing or just treat it as cliche or toxic, they're dismissing one man's very personal, very lived experience of combat and war and how one reacts to it and engages with it on a behavioral and moral level.

 

RJ was relating his personal experience to Rand and what Rand goes through, particularly the severe and crippling PTSD Rand effectively goes through in The Fires of Heaven through The Gathering Storm, not to Lan.

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25 minutes ago, Which Tyler said:

Chopping away at... just about everything is absolutely essential.

 

Unique and interesting character dynamics should be among the things you avoid dropping. It rounds characters out to have them affect several things and several other characters, rather than just defining them narrowly. Lan matters to Moiraine, he matters to Nynaeve, and he matters to Rand as a mentor (to Perrin and Mat too, though to a much lesser extent IIRC). That gives three different relationships and three different sorts of interactions. Cut out Rand as someone Lan has any early connection with and you lose one of the few outlets Lan has to express himself as one of the ensemble. 

Everyone acknowledges WoT is very loosely written, and especially in the latter half is very, very bloated. We're talking the earlier, relatively-taut books here, and the character dynamics and inter-relations are very much adaptable if they decide to adapt them. The Eye of the World is about the length of A Game of Thrones, and even there everyone agrees you could cut back substantially on travelogue. So, they absolutely could have established these character dynamics if they wished to. They did not. They prioritized other things, like deepening some dynamics, or expanding on the world and setting, and so on.

These are choices they've made. They were not inevitable choices. And if there was any time at all where it would be easiest to establish characters and their relationships, it's probably now, when the story is most straightforward and least split apart.

 

17 minutes ago, Werthead said:

RJ was relating his personal experience to Rand and what Rand goes through, particularly the severe and crippling PTSD Rand effectively goes through in The Fires of Heaven through The Gathering Storm, not to Lan.

And Lan's role, inadvertent as they may seem, in what Rand goes through in those books are pretty clearly deliberate. Jordan literally said that Lan represented the ideals he had been raised to believe in, and it's pretty straightforward to see  that there is a direct link between Rand's dealing with his PTSD and his interpretation of the "Lan ideal", much as one can imagine that whatever Jordan's traumas from Vietnam were probably interacted with the ideals he had been taught.

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1 hour ago, IFR said:

This show is rife with cliches, so I don't see why the strong, silent type warrior would be a problem. Especially because it is an important part of Rand's development. Lan definitely is a role model for him early on, and the accepting stoicism becomes an integral part of Rand's character arc. "Duty is heavier than a mountain, death lighter than a feather." And you can let go of your duty when your dead. Etc.

Rand gets so carried away with trying to be the stoic whipping boy of the world that when he breaks it becomes highly destructive. He forgets to laugh and cry, nearly to the world's undoing. I think Jordan did a good job exploring a culture of trauma where there isn't an outlet for release, but it is all internalized.

By going the "sensitive warrior" route, the writers are going to potentially undermine this.

 

Lan being a role-model for Rand early on is a good point, and something I had forgotten about.

27 minutes ago, fionwe1987 said:

While I definitely think Lan is a bit of a role model for Rand's "hard but not strong" phase, I'm less concerned that what they do with Lan will undermine that storyline, and more concerned that their rushed execution will undermine that storyline. 

I  agree with this, I'm more concerned about the writers just not being up to the task of depicting Rand's struggle with trauma and depression, which is by far the most powerful thing about the books for me, and very clearly drawing on Robert Jordan's own Vietnam war experience.

23 minutes ago, Ran said:

Also have to underscore that Jordan was a veteran, and a decorated one at that -- a Bronze Star with a "v" indicating it was due to valor in combat -- and I think one has to engage with his depiction of a soldier's mentality, post-traumtic stress, etc. through the lens of someone who had seen combat and had seen horrors (e.g. Jordan remarks of a photo of himself eating his rations while seated on a log beside several Vietcong corpses; it was just the most convenient place to sit, and he was unfazed by the bodies; or his remark on knowing he had killed a female Vietcong soldier in the course of a firefight.)

So when people dismiss this sort of thing or just treat it as cliche or toxic, they're dismissing one man's very personal, very lived experience of combat and war and how one reacts to it and engages with it on a behavioral and moral level.

Oh don't worry, I'm well aware of all of this. As I said above, Rand's internal struggles in the books are by far Robert Jordan's best work IMO. The writing is extremely evocative in a way that can only be drawing on personal experience of PTSD, which immediately makes sense once one finds out that Robert Jordan served in Vietnam.

I got so invested in Rand's struggles that the end of book 12 ended up being one of the most powerful things I've ever read. I found book 7 to 11 to really be a slog but it was all worth it to get to that moment.

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18 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Lews Therin is the one at the bottom? 

Interesting casting choice, obviously not how I pictured him but I've gotten used to that by now.

His clothes look somewhat Star Trek-ish from what little we can see. I get that the Age of Legends was super advanced but I still pictured it as looking historical rather than futuristic. I pictured it as a kind of Atlantis-type setting. I wonder how heavy sci-fi they're gonna go with it.

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4 minutes ago, Darryk said:

Lews Therin is the one at the bottom? 

Interesting casting choice, obviously not how I pictured him but I've gotten used to that by now.

His clothes look somewhat Star Trek-ish from what little we can see. I get that the Age of Legends was super advanced but I still pictured it as looking historical rather than futuristic. I pictured it as a kind of Atlantis-type setting. I wonder how heavy sci-fi they're gonna go with it.

The Age of Legends was straight-up pulp sci-fi. They had antigravity, hovercars, 3D holographic TVs, weather control devices, laser cannons, clothes that changed colour and shape dynamically based on the wearer's mood (the Warder cloaks are actually a remnant of futuristic fast fashion!), electrically-infused melee weapons and space travel. The cities has massive super-skyscrapers and people habitually lived on different continents to where they worked and teleported in as their morning commute (although that seems to have been done by Aes Sedai, not technology). And investment bankers, the career that drove at least one of the Forsaken into becoming evil, which frankly is understandable.

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2 minutes ago, Werthead said:

The Age of Legends was straight-up pulp sci-fi. They had antigravity, hovercars, 3D holographic TVs, weather control devices, laser cannons, clothes that changed colour and shape dynamically based on the wearer's mood (the Warder cloaks are actually a remnant of futuristic fast fashion!), electrically-infused melee weapons and space travel. The cities has massive super-skyscrapers and people habitually lived on different continents to where they worked and teleported in as their morning commute (although that seems to have been done by Aes Sedai, not technology). And investment bankers, the career that drove at least one of the Forsaken into becoming evil, which frankly is understandable.

Hmm I don't remember much of that. :lol:  I hope they have the budget for this and it doesn't end up looking B-Grade.

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3 hours ago, Werthead said:

Also worth noting that the Warder ritual is apparently based on a Korean funeral rite, which Daniel Henney (who is Korean-American) appreciated. The show seems to be going with the idea that Lan actually has his shit together at the start of the storyline and knows when to be stoic and when to be supportive and when to show emotion, which was not the case in the books.

Yeah and it seems more than a little insensitive to describe something based on real world grieving rituals as being a clown. Just because it's unfamiliar to you doesn't make it wrong.

And that idea for the alternate funeral scene sounds much worse than the version we got in the show, overly focused on trying to make Lan super duper special both in terms of caring more but also in terms of suppressing his emotions. 

I greatly prefer these warders who are actually people, and the Lan they're depicting is the Lan who was under that bullshit for me. As for why shy away from one more cliche? Because strong brooding silent man is probably the most overdone in the history of visual story telling, some of us find it harmful and boring as shit.

ETA: I'd missed that there was another page when posting, so want to be clear. Strong silent type played straight is what I'm calling boring as shit, using that to explore trauma underpinning it and the issues with lack of an outlet is looking at actual people and a different story. I'm not dismissing the great many people struggling with those issues or their experiences, but I wouldn't say stories which explore that are actually engaging in the cliche - the cliche is when there's nothing genuine behind it.

And I think this Lan can still give Rand the terrible but well intentioned advice not realizing how badly Rand will put it into practice

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I have a stupid question. I jeep seeing references to "notes" that Sanderson and Harriet apparently gave the showrunner but I don't know what the actual story is there. Can someone sum it up or if it's long link me to a related article? I think I missed it with all the news.

Also, watching non book readers guess who the DR is is pretty hilarious. No one thinks it's Rand, from what I've seen :P

Also, also: fuck that shad guy and people like him.

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I am not aware of any notes prior to the start of production, but Sanderson read the scripts and made comments about things he would change. Judkins listened to him in some areas, and not in others. Werthead posted a video of Sanderson chatting with his pal, Dan Wells, higher in the thread.

 

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It’s blowing my mind that non readers aren’t getting it’s Rand. It’s clearly a guy because they devoted a huge chunk to the notion that the Dragon goes crazy if it’s a guy. Mat and Perrin have their own powers/storylines and, what seems to make it obvious, Rand is the only one they’ve shown doing an apparently impossible act, with no other explanation.

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4 hours ago, Rippounet said:

Let's bear in mind that, although this hasn't been introduced in the show yet, Aes Sedai are supposed to follow the stronger channeler around. So the Amyrlin should always be at least one of the top three channelers out there.
The reason why Siuan can be seen as "weak" is only because many exceptional individuals appear (or re-appear) with the Last Battle (and, let's be honest, for plot convenience).

I'm going to laugh my ass of if the show introduces the silly concept of the Aes Sedai having to submit to the strongest channeler around.

Why bother with elections and parliaments and offices when you have to bow to the strongest one in charge, anyway?

4 hours ago, Gertrude said:

See, this whole power chart is soooooo not my jam and I think it just unnecessarily complicates things. Maybe Jordan needed a rough power chart for his own internal recordkeeping and that makes sense, but I am not the part of the fandom that cares about the details. I'd be fine with a rough idea of strength, and having someone be Talented in an area, or just more skilled being enough reason to overpower or outshine someone. Raw strength seems boring. Syrio Forel would never have been First Sword of Braavos if that was the standard. :p

It is a pretty rule of thumb, in my opinion, that a fictional world inevitably breaks down when (1) there are power charts, and (2) folks are obsessed (mainly) with question who is stronger than who.

Even if you have a magical system of sorts ... doing it in a RPG-like chart way is not very smart. Even magic should be more complex than 'if you are super talented then nobody can hold their ground against you'.

As for the depiction of Lan:

I know I'm not that far into this series, but so far Lan doesn't have much of a character in the books - be it emotional or not emotional. He never gets into a situation where anybody would care about how he feels, nor has he any reason to get emotional himself.

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13 minutes ago, john said:

It’s blowing my mind that non readers aren’t getting it’s Rand. It’s clearly a guy because they devoted a huge chunk to the notion that the Dragon goes crazy if it’s a guy. Mat and Perrin have their own powers/storylines and, what seems to make it obvious, Rand is the only one they’ve shown doing an apparently impossible act, with no other explanation.

This lady on the right figured it out, but she was led there a bit:

 

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