Wheel of Time: The 2nd Turning (Book Spoilers Inclusive)

[Myrddin]

Agreed. I understand the desire to not lock the "prophesied savior" role to be male, but the whole point is that the Dragon will go mad because of Saidin. Throwing Nynaeve and Egwene into the candidate pool was just messy and unnecessary in an already limited amount of time. Shouldn't it have been easy for Moiraine to confirm the girls we're tapping into Saidin?

(Don't get me started on Warder subplot - interesting but there was so much other stuff that had to be cut to do it)

If they really wanted to play up "Who is the Dragon", a tighter focus on Perrin, Mat, and Rand would've carried the mystery. Nynaeve and Egwene didn't need that to be built as strong characters. 

[Gertrude]

On 6/23/2023 at 10:08 AM, IFR said:

For me, the change I disliked the most - and I disliked so many of the changes in the show - is that it is believed that the Dragon prophesied could be a man or a woman.

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I also hate that power progression has already been rendered nonsensical by the end of the first season. 

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And I would be delighted if people repeatedly complained about these poorly calculated changes. But I also think that the ethnicity changes made in this show is comparably stupid to the many other bad changes. So it is nice to see the show regularly castigated for this.

But mostly everyone is in agreement over the two changes you mention, but not everyone agrees that the casting was a poor decision

[Darryk]

On 6/26/2023 at 10:36 PM, grozeng said:

This was exactly my problem.  Not having Rand be the one that saved the day at the end because he was the Dragon Reborn was a change I did not like.  As soon as we finished watching the finale, I told my daughter she needed to read the book because the ending of the book was much better.  To me, that was the one change they should not have done.  

Especially after Moraine set it up so well by telling Logain he was just a candle next to the raging sun that is the Dragon Reborn. I thought for sure that was foreshadowing for Rand going full supernova at the end.

[IFR]

3 hours ago, Gertrude said:

But mostly everyone is in agreement over the two changes you mention, but not everyone agrees that the casting was a poor decision

I cannot recall every discussion made regarding the show, but I'm pretty sure even within this forum there were several advocates for expanding the potential DR suspects to the women, and also for Nynaeve et al to have their fearsome novice power show at the conclusion of the season. And definitely on reddit and Dragonmount you will find such advocates.

And it's fine to have that opinion. But I heartily disagree with it, and enjoy when those opinions are given a thorough thrashing.

[grozeng]

Yeah, I didn't like a lot of the casting, but it is what it is.  To me it wasn't the diversity of the cast, it was the acting, especialy Perrin (and that mole on Egwene's neck - that is all I can look at when she is on screen  ).

I tend to look at these types of shows as based on the books that I read and not true scene for scene recreations.  As long as it follows the basic premise, I am good.

But the changes at the end to have Rand not save the day was something that was a bit too different and I don't think it added anything to the story.  Mat being left behind didn't bother me too much because I knew there was another reason for it and I am interested to see where they go with that.

[IlyaP]

6 hours ago, grozeng said:

But the changes at the end to have Rand not save the day was something that was a bit too different and I don't think it added anything to the story.  Mat being left behind didn't bother me too much because I knew there was another reason for it and I am interested to see where they go with that.

From what I understand, this was a two-pronged decision of wanting to find a way to somehow include the rest of the characters in having some involvement in the ending so they're not just sitting around doing nothing at Tarwin's Gap and...frelling Covid causing production woes, forcing them to get creative. 

[karaddin]

7 hours ago, IFR said:

I cannot recall every discussion made regarding the show, but I'm pretty sure even within this forum there were several advocates for expanding the potential DR suspects to the women, and also for Nynaeve et al to have their fearsome novice power show at the conclusion of the season. And definitely on reddit and Dragonmount you will find such advocates.

And it's fine to have that opinion. But I heartily disagree with it, and enjoy when those opinions are given a thorough thrashing.

Context for the below: I'm putting my hand up as one of the people you're probably thinking of and clarifying my position now I've had plenty of time to sit with it.

I think WoT has a fundamental tension with the existence of transgender people and as a trans person I appreciate that they chose to make it feel like a world I could exist in rather than one that would misgender me by it's metaphysics. I will concede that it does cause narrative complications and if you go back to my posts before the season started my stance was that I don't think there's actually a good way to handle this gender issue and this story. So I appreciate being included and accept needing to overlook that issue on the understanding that it will never be as big as issue as it is in season 1, given the show audience now knows it's Rand.

The fight at Tarwin's Gap has a few dynamics

1) Power Ceiling - This is the one I defend. Circles are a major force multiplier and the show seems to be minimizing the power gap between Saidin and Saidar so that circle includes one woman that's a single step below the dragon in power and another woman that's another couple of steps down. The raw power these two provide within a circle of 5 is ok for me, and they're not leading the circle so they don't need to know the weaves. I expect this to be the power ceiling for at least half the story with occasional exceptions though rather than increasing every season from here - it's a preview of where it's going. 

Yes, a regular circle can't be comparable in power to what was stored at the Eye of the World but that's pretty much wasted in the book and ultimately just serves a similar purpose of showing where it's going there. I do not think the end of the first book is good, so obviously I'm going to feel differently to someone that likes it.

2) Visuals - this encompasses everything about the visual presentation, the effects, the blocking, the small number of actors present in the scene etc. It wasn't good. They got fucked by COVID on top of some other issues with production that impacted the whole season, I think lighting was a big one, and it just didn't come together. I'm hoping that's going to be a problem that only impacts the first season and time will tell on that score. I'm not a defender of this.

3) The burn out/healing - this was a failure of the visual story telling, not of the writing. Nynaeve was not dead, she wasn't meant to be dead, Egwene is not healing death - no one can do that and we'll still get that fantastic disturbing scene with the glowy sword that's going to be one of the exceptions to the power ceiling I mentioned in (1). The fact that so many people thought that scene was meant to be her healing death absolutely makes it a failure though, if the scene isn't accurately conveying what happened then it's failing. I'd say it was a questionable writing decision, but given is was originally meant to be nursing her back to health with herbal treatments and is part of that whole "got fucked by the start of the pandemic" thing I don't think that's representative of poor writing choices that undermine the direction of the story in the way healing death would be.

4) The stuff with Fain and Perrin - utterly fucked by the pandemic and Barney Harris leaving. This didn't really work but they didn't have a good solution, I don't blame them for it.

---

The impression I have is that the "who is the dragon" mystery was actually somewhat effecting at engaging non book readers, I'm glad it's over though and hope moving on from that steadies the ship. 

Brook and I loved the warder side plot, I don't think it's filler - it's doing a lot of set up for things that are coming with Moraine/Lan/Nynaeve and the show will ultimately benefit from show only viewers having that set up. The 5 kids didn't get enough characterization but I hope that some of what felt missing here is going to have been moved to seasons 2 and 3 rather than lost completely.

At the end of the day it just comes down to whether we enjoyed it or not though, I did and a lot of you didn't.

[IlyaP]

7 hours ago, karaddin said:

At the end of the day it just comes down to whether we enjoyed it or not though, I did and a lot of you didn't.

Is it considered a bad take to say I really didn't enjoy the score? I know Lorne Balfe can compose good work (see also D&D: Honor Among Thieves) but I would have preferred music akin to Robert Berry's, who did a *spectacular* job with the music he composed for the '99 game.

[karaddin]

32 minutes ago, IlyaP said:

Is it considered a bad take to say I really didn't enjoy the score? I know Lorne Balfe can compose good work (see also D&D: Honor Among Thieves) but I would have preferred music akin to Robert Berry's, who did a *spectacular* job with the music he composed for the '99 game.

It's not a bad take to say you didn't enjoy anything, I try not to ever have a go at someone just for not enjoying it. The main one that really gets my back up is attributing malice or negligence on the part of the crew rather than a difference in taste or not being up to the challenge of the material.

I don't remember the score at all which probably means I didn't find it particularly impressive either. The only one with any recall is enjoying the title sequence but even the music there didn't make the impression of a bunch of others.

To take that on a tangent, the older I get the more impressed I am with the artistry involved in scoring/sound tracks whether it's for TV, movies or games. It's an inherently intertextual medium where so much of what you're doing relies on building on top of prior works using the existing associations as essentially another instrument. Was musing on this while watching the Silo season finale with that title sequence evoking Westworld (that I'm conscious of) and I assume several other recent works.

[IlyaP]

4 hours ago, karaddin said:

It's not a bad take to say you didn't enjoy anything, I try not to ever have a go at someone just for not enjoying it.

 

Same. I maintain a "degustibus non est disputandum" position when it comes to what art we do or don't enjoy. 

4 hours ago, karaddin said:

The main one that really gets my back up is attributing malice or negligence on the part of the crew rather than a difference in taste or not being up to the challenge of the material.

You mean in terms of having material that's wildly offensive or filming in a way that puts those involved in the creation of said material at risk due to lack of safety, etc?

4 hours ago, karaddin said:

I don't remember the score at all which probably means I didn't find it particularly impressive either. The only one with any recall is enjoying the title sequence but even the music there didn't make the impression of a bunch of others.

It was...vaguely atmospheric, but you can clearly hear the influence of post Crimson Tide Hans Zimmer, courtesy of his Remote Control Studios kind of influence, which is to say, a sonic wall of instruments kinda mashed together like a sonic Jackson Pollock painting without any consideration for memorable leitmotifs or anything, and instead, operating as a kind of sonic texture. 

4 hours ago, karaddin said:

To take that on a tangent, the older I get the more impressed I am with the artistry involved in scoring/sound tracks whether it's for TV, movies or games. It's an inherently intertextual medium where so much of what you're doing relies on building on top of prior works using the existing associations as essentially another instrument. Was musing on this while watching the Silo season finale with that title sequence evoking Westworld (that I'm conscious of) and I assume several other recent works.

Did you not pay as much attention to film/game/TV scores in the past? If not, what caused you to put more consideration/thought into that particular artistic endeavour? 

[karaddin]

2 minutes ago, IlyaP said:

You mean in terms of having material that's wildly offensive or filming in a way that puts those involved in the creation of said material at risk due to lack of safety, etc?

It was...vaguely atmospheric, but you can clearly hear the influence of post Crimson Tide Hans Zimmer, courtesy of his Remote Control Studios kind of influence, which is to say, a sonic wall of instruments kinda mashed together like a sonic Jackson Pollock painting without any consideration for memorable leitmotifs or anything, and instead, operating as a kind of sonic texture. 

Did you not pay as much attention to film/game/TV scores in the past? If not, what caused you to put more consideration/thought into that particular artistic endeavour? 

1st - I mean, and lets use this show as the specific so its clear rather than general, comments like "Rafe Judkins actually hates the WoT and is just using it to get an opportunity for his own writing". When you've got a pattern over many seasons of apparent contempt for the source material then that can become fair, but on a first season? I've seen plenty from him that makes it clear there is a lot in the story that he loves, it just might be very different to what many other people love. And I certainly thing there are plenty of grounds to say he was not entirely across the skill set needed by a showrunner in season 1, I hope he either fills those gaps with new hires or learnt a lot from s1. Criticizing dangerous filming is a whole different ballgame and entirely fair.

2nd - So what you're saying is the Australian government should buy one of his scores as a future investment, since that worked so well with Blue Poles

3rd - I think that's probably overstating it, really more just a graph of increasing appreciation over time lol. But youtube videos doing analysis sped that process up, and generally does for most things I watch them on haha. They give me enough to better understand what's being done and the skill involved, without actually knowing enough about the sausage is made that all I can see is the gross minced bits. There's one about a scene from Portrait of a Lady on fire (which actually doesn't have a score for almost the entire movie) about the subtle story telling through blocking/composition/shot selection* that really stuck with me, that's probably the best example of the process even though you were asking about scoring rather than visuals.

*As I said, I get enough to appreciate it but not actually understand, no idea which of these terms is actually right for what was talked about lol

[IlyaP]

4 hours ago, karaddin said:

It's not a bad take to say you didn't enjoy anything, I try not to ever have a go at someone just for not enjoying it. The main one that really gets my back up is attributing malice or negligence on the part of the crew rather than a difference in taste or not being up to the challenge of the material.

I don't remember the score at all which probably means I didn't find it particularly impressive either. The only one with any recall is enjoying the title sequence but even the music there didn't make the impression of a bunch of others.

To take that on a tangent, the older I get the more impressed I am with the artistry involved in scoring/sound tracks whether it's for TV, movies or games. It's an inherently intertextual medium where so much of what you're doing relies on building on top of prior works using the existing associations as essentially another instrument. Was musing on this while watching the Silo season finale with that title sequence evoking Westworld (that I'm conscious of) and I assume several other recent works.

The whole score can be heard on the tubes of you. There are four official score releases (yes, I bought all of them). It's not bad from a technical, layering, or editing perspective, it's just not...interesting. It's not remotely as lively and colorful as Berry's score, and feels far gloomier, darker, and mashes (intentionally) a number of different - and potentially conflicting - styles of music to create an atmospheric and haunting texture but one that feels like it belongs in a completely different show or film. Even Berry's "moodiest" piece, Dahl of a Chant, is more memorable and evocative of TWoT than Balfe's score. 

At least, this is my position on it. I'm sure there are people who'll feel otherwise - and that's absolutely fine. 

[IlyaP]

4 minutes ago, karaddin said:

1st - I mean, and lets use this show as the specific so its clear rather than general, comments like "Rafe Judkins actually hates the WoT and is just using it to get an opportunity for his own writing". When you've got a pattern over many seasons of apparent contempt for the source material then that can become fair, but on a first season? I've seen plenty from him that makes it clear there is a lot in the story that he loves, it just might be very different to what many other people love. And I certainly thing there are plenty of grounds to say he was not entirely across the skill set needed by a showrunner in season 1, I hope he either fills those gaps with new hires or learnt a lot from s1. Criticizing dangerous filming is a whole different ballgame and entirely fair.

It would be disingenous, if not outright lying, to say he hates TWoT, as his love and appreciation for the material is blindly clear in every single interview he's in. (Also, his IG posts about his boyfriend and their getaways are goddamn adorable.)

4 minutes ago, karaddin said:

2nd - So what you're saying is the Australian government should buy one of his scores as a future investment, since that worked so well with Blue Poles

To paraphrase Ian Malcolm: "Hiring Lorne Balfe as a sonic patron for this island continent is one of the the worst ideas in the long, sad history of bad ideas. And, uh, I'm gonna be there when Australians learn that."

 

4 minutes ago, karaddin said:

3rd - I think that's probably overstating it, really more just a graph of increasing appreciation over time lol. But youtube videos doing analysis sped that process up, and generally does for most things I watch them on haha. They give me enough to better understand what's being done and the skill involved, without actually knowing enough about the sausage is made that all I can see is the gross minced bits. There's one about a scene from Portrait of a Lady on fire (which actually doesn't have a score for almost the entire movie) about the subtle story telling through blocking/composition/shot selection* that really stuck with me, that's probably the best example of the process even though you were asking about scoring rather than visuals.

Would it be correct to say then that the absence of music made you think about it in a new way, given the atypical absence of a score in the film? 

4 minutes ago, karaddin said:

*As I said, I get enough to appreciate it but not actually understand, no idea which of these terms is actually right for what was talked about lol

I think you explain it pretty well, all things considered! And in ways, better than I think I'd have said it, for whatever that's worth! (I do know many of the terms musicologists might use, but try to avoid Jargon Assaulting people, as I think it causes more confusion than not.)

[karaddin]

2 minutes ago, IlyaP said:

Would it be correct to say then that the absence of music made you think about it in a new way, given the atypical absence of a score in the film? 

Once I was aware of it yeah. They actually replaced the traditional score with diabetic noises to fill the role of marking the tempo of the scene, the tap of hard shoes on floorboards, the pace of the dialogue etc. It's really nicely done.

[Ran]

1 hour ago, karaddin said:

diabetic noises

Diegetic, I think you mistyped (or your phone autocorrected)! Diabetic is very different...

 

Portrait of a Lady on Fire is just perfection. I suspect this is the video you watched? 

 

[karaddin]

4 minutes ago, Ran said:

Diegetic, I think you mistyped (or your phone autocorrected)! Diabetic is very different...

 

Portrait of a Lady on Fire is just perfection. I suspect this is the video you watched? 

 

*Snort* yeah that was meant to say diagetic. I even double checked the word then forgot to check my phone keyboard didn't decide I wanted something else.

I'm not actually sure if I have seen that one before or if it has been referenced in other videos I've seen, but I'll certainly give it a watch. The main one I was remembering with the scene breakdown was this one. Shout out to this also being a phenomenal example of what is actually meant by observer and observed.

[Zorral]

1 hour ago, karaddin said:

I even double checked the word then forgot to check my phone keyboard didn't decide I wanted something else.

Another reason I hate the foney-fone.  But whatya gonna do?

[IlyaP]

7 hours ago, karaddin said:

*Snort* yeah that was meant to say diagetic. I even double checked the word then forgot to check my phone keyboard didn't decide I wanted something else.

"Diabetic music". 

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA! 

Here! Her is my proof once and for all that a great typo is worth its weight in gold! 

[IlyaP]

9 hours ago, karaddin said:

Once I was aware of it yeah. They actually replaced the traditional score with diabetic noises to fill the role of marking the tempo of the scene, the tap of hard shoes on floorboards, the pace of the dialogue etc. It's really nicely done.

I haven't seen the movie (yet!), but I wonder: would you say that a side effect of this approach is that it gives the movie an almost horror-like feel, from a sound perspective? Because suddenly Every Noise stands out?

[karaddin]

16 minutes ago, IlyaP said:

I haven't seen the movie (yet!), but I wonder: would you say that a side effect of this approach is that it gives the movie an almost horror-like feel, from a sound perspective? Because suddenly Every Noise stands out?

There's an intensity and the silences get quite drawn out in a way that I think would be useful at times in horror but it's not that sort of movie so there's no fear attached to it. I think I'd say it makes me feel like I'm being watched/aware of the intensity of being watched which is remarkably appropriate for contributing to what the movie is about lol.