who in this bitch reads robert jordan? -- The Wheel of Time thread

No hes a slavic strength god with a magic hammer

Jordan spreads it around a bit

Tim- had pretty much similar thoughts, tjink its promising that they may have thought

i) how would it work for tv

ii) knowing how it went in the books and yknow what youd fix now its done, will we do that?

In Slavic mythology, Perun (Cyrillic: Перýн) is the highest god of the pantheon and the god of sky, thunder, lightning, storms, rain, law, war, fertility and oak trees. His other attributes were fire, mountains, wind, iris, eagle, firmament (in Indo-European languages, this was joined with the notion of the sky of stone), horses and carts, weapons (hammer, axe (Axe of Perun), and arrow), and war. He was first associated with weapons made of stone and later with those of metal.

A lot of angelic herald names in there too, etc etc

Speedreading through egwene captivity as seanchan attack at present, its where that character ascends to equal lead with rand i think

His parts in the same book felt like a bit of mood/watertreading at the time but theres a lot of it that sits excellently with how he resolves his role at the end of the book (if it its this book that happens?)

This time around i think a major specific issue jordan has is that rand's arc and actions narratively carry everything up til book six and i think the idea that after that other characters would take the weight as rand became an ever more difficult figure to write without moving things *too* quickly but too many of those characters simply weren't set up to hold that much water

Perrin gets there, egwene absolutely gets there, mat probably (tho i think sanderson never manages to nail him tbh)

Nynaeve doesnt, and a host of midrange characters simply fade out til you hear they died or whatever

I think I'd say perhaps that only Rand and Egwene's character arcs are big enough to really sustain across the series, though (and leading on from your point above) for both of them time slows down dramatically from book 7 onwards while RJ moves pieces into position around them. I think Sanderson making The Gathering Storm essentially about the two of them reflected a recognition of the importance of their central character arcs, as much as plot development, to creating a sense of narrative satisfaction. Egwene's passages in that book are some of the most satisfying to read of the whole series even though for most of it she's pruning gardens or shelling nuts, because there's a real sense that every exchange, every internal reflection, is driving the character forward, with her trips to silviana's study acting as "how tall are we today?" pitstop checks.

A lot of the issues for the other characters stem from not knowing what do with their narrative arcs. Perrin all but completes his in book 4 and then has essentially nothing to do until the final few books, so RJ just stalls and creates unnecessary, unresolved conflicts to keep him on a hamster wheel. People joke about nynaeve tugging her braid, but Perrin constantly wondering why women smell angry with him has to be the legit most annoying recurring motif in these books. A good change the show could make if it ever gets that far is to either have perrin actually sleep with berelain or dispense with that so-called love triangle completely.

Mat's arc is steadier, but I think that partly reflects a longer on-ramping time (his gormlessness is pretty shallow until... book 5 I think?). Unfortunately for Sanderson, he had the double problem of seemingly not being able to do humour without being heavy-handed, and picking up just at the point where Mat had had his best, most satisfying scenes: RJ's writing for Mat in Knife of Dreams is highly enjoyable and effectively completes his character arc. He obviously still has important work to do after that, but Sanderson fumbles any sense of productive tension between the demands of the plot and the character's internal world.

I tend to think Nynaeve does get there. Arguably she has a structural problem in that RJ made her character arc essentially about her working through her own unacknowledged emotional immaturity (as symbolised by her block); once she does that she essentially has nowhere to go, and suddenly the number of Nynaeve POVs drop off a cliff, though she's an enjoyable character to return to because her voice is so distinct. It seems clear that the intention was for her character to turn into a mediation-point between Rand and Egwene in the final few books, but by that point it's hard to really stand out with so much frenzied plot-completion box-ticking going on, not to mention Cadsuane sucking up all her narrative oxygen.

Essentially the opposite problem to Elayne, whose character arc is easy to explain, and write to, in broad terms, but not in terms of character development, and so she spends a lot of time idling in plot-devices with limited long-term significance, while her character development bounces around a lot in a manner that arguably is more realistic psychologically than for the other characters but not necessarily very satisfying for the reader.

In this regard, if Rand and Egwene's arcs have similar strengths and pitfalls, you can similarly match Nynaeve to Mat and Elayne to Perrin.

Maybe so

The stuff that is set up around the final confrontation is perhaps solidifed quite early which leaves some of the related strands in place and obviously so for a long lone time, nynaeve's relationship with rand is certainly one of those things and definitely agree that cadsuane hoovers up a lot of what would have been maybe the better development space for her there

Re-reading it i think more and more each time that cadsuane is a wholly unnecessary character

But these are probably very inevitable flaws in a work that set up so much, so well, before the sales and the scope creep kicked in

A mightily enjoyable post to read and ponder at any rate

You wouldnt think of doing a wheel of tim podcast no?

Aside from "who killed asmodean" the two main things i think are unresolved are, and the three are by no means of a type or anything:

- look i have to ask what exactly is a darkfriend like what are the mechanics of it like i dunno it seems to jump around a lot idk

(Lads this is how i talk in work meetings btw)

- for all the fuckin pondering and for all the arguing and for all the times he uses it as justification nobody once even tries to maybe convince ran that "his blood on the rocks of shayol gull" mightnt just call for like a drop or whatever? I mean plenty other of the prophecies that need fulfilling are at best poetic licence and at worst straight outve "will this do" nostradamus retrospective configuration idk seems like it wouldve been worth calling him on just once

Across the dozen odd books there may be one or two more i admit

Haha - I go for years at a time not thinking about these books but whenever something comes along to remind me (like a trailer!) it all comes back very vividly. They're not masterpiece books but I think the sheer scope of them kind of magnifies both the strengths and the weaknesses that make them really interesting to think about. But I'd probably be a bad choice for a podcast!

I agree cadsuane was probably an unnecessary character, though also one of the most sharply drawn, which kind of compounds the problem! Everyone except Rand and perhaps Min fades into the background of any scene she is in. I guess the extent to which she has to learn some humility in the final few books is somewhat satisfying (Rand telling her that he's several thousand years older than her

"Who killed asmodean" actually was resolved, but in a really underwhelming manner which makes it easy to forget, and in retrospect it would have been better if they had just shown that it was [redacted spoiler] at the time. A bit similar to how the obsession with whether Taim was Demandred meant that when Demandred finally does reveal himself it's a bit underwhelming.

Actually the most underwhelming plot resolution surely was the Perrin / Aram doom thing.

Not to turn it into a contest but the most underwhelming is the last three pages tbh

haha fair.

Endings is tough, we will make allowances

While we wait, a thing:

https://deadline.com/2021/09/the-wheel-of-time-donal-finn-to-play-mat-cauthon-in-recasting-on-amazon-series-as-barney-harris-not-returning-for-season-2-1234840887/

There's a new sheriff in town (or something)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIMkfP4JsxU

Well im psyched but plenty is being moved about- thats clear

We got main trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPAYuCt7Eco

Lovely, not watching til later

Still lightly skipping through last two books

It's been 20 years so I started at the beginning and I could barely slog through the first book. It's not looking good for me lads.

Plenty looks to have changed for the series

NB ....... imo you wouldnt be a million miles from a Nynaeve betimes tbh

loool

No hes an ogier

Trailers look very promising

Trailer looks great. None of the implied changes vis a vis the book look concerning to me, and seem largely driven by a need to compress the events a bit.

Fans are freaking out that the trailer suggests that Moiraine deliberately takes all 5 Emond's Fielders away with her (incl. Nynaeve) and appears to tell them that any of them (including Egwene and Nynave) could be "the one" the Dark Lord is after.

This is being treated by dumb idiots as the greatest piece of leftwing bastardry since whatever franchise entrant pissed them off last week, when the real explanation is probably more like, "let's give Egwene and Nynaeve slightly more than paper-thin motivations to leave their hometown and also save a boatload of time in the process."

Yeah i think we - you, tbf- covered this well upthread

Changes so far seem judicious to me

I realised recently that my default form of critique is “okay, I love this. From a place of love, how could it be improved?”

Turning these very flawed but charming books into a tv show would be such a difficult but enjoyable exercise. So I’m inclined to sympathise with the show runners and give them the benefit of the doubt until given a reason not to, because there is no way I would tell this story totally faithfully if I was in their position.

Yeah i think changes inevitable both for adaptation and improvement purposes and the moves that seem to have taken place to bring the story up to the current social moment would seem to work hand in hand with the above in any case, so no loss there

I was trying to see from the snippets how far the adaptation goes, end of book one seems obvious but with some events from laters books brought into chronological order (prophecies and moiraine backstory) sewn in

Is that thom merrilin telling us what aes sedai means? Too young looking and not salty enough imo

"You have fully lost your mind" was a bit jarring

I think that is a young sexy Thom yeah

Posh mat

Be grand

Showrunner interview

https://gizmodo.com/adapting-the-wheel-of-time-for-tv-is-an-epic-all-its-ow-1848026456

Looks like the first episodes are live...

One episode in, seems like they figured out how to get it going. Rosamund's doing some big 'Cate Blanchett at the start of Fellowship' energy in both the start and end narration but that was probably unavoidable.

i'm pretty impressed! not into the music tho

My one real objection there was the Mumford and Sons-style instrumental jam as the town parties but that is, how you say, interrupted.

I havent read the books but enjoyed the first episode

The one boy gives me Hayden Christensen vibes (maybe just a danish thing) but otherwise I’m into it

oh and the dancing was dumb. stand in a circle, jump clap … honestly

among the lads the best actor (imo) is the one who's apparently gonna get booted?

why has darragh not weighed in here tho

also i had to search online to make sure that perrin did the very bad thing as opposed to pulling short and simply watching her die from other wounds

Ive been busy, will catch these as and when

this was...consistently mediocre

I assume "best actor" is the guy who plays Mat? Everyone else had strong "these are the words in the script and I am reading them" energy.

It is a *long* time since I read any of the books and most of what I remember has already happened, so I'll enjoy the ride until it inevitably gets cancelled.

Crossposted from Ned's FB post, a few thoughts...

1. Rand and Mat both seem much less likable than than in the books, though, (SPOILERS) Rand obviously becomes more of a dick as things go along.

2. Hated Thom's song and the corny guitar theme they play when he's about to enter the frame. Music in general is not great but I guess it could be worse.

3. Myrddraal good and scary. very good job.

There are certainly some obvious fantasy cliches, as my wife who has never read the books pointed out, but there's not much the TV creators can do about that. I think it's really good tbh. Or at least a lot better than I thought it would be.

There are some things, I wonder how well telegraphed they were to an audience unfamiliar with the books? Does the casual viewer have any understanding of what happened to Mat at Shadar Logoth? Again, I haven't read the books in decades, and maybe the reader doesn't understand shit at his point either, but i dunno man.

Whitecloaks are good cuz I hate them.

I am enjoying this but also I’m furious about Perrin

lol. at least it will presumably save us hundreds of pages' worth of axe vs. hammer whining

Yeah I don't particularly like the Perrin plot change but I can see the reasoning behind it. So far it has only meant that the actor sits there looking like he is deeply constipated but things could improve from this point.

always love a maria doyle kennedy appearance

Good irish casting from what i can see overall

Okay, my thoughts generally:

1. So far, about as good as I reasonably expected. Pacing feels all over the place but that is kind of inevitable, as is the frequent clunkiness of dialogue and intermittent failure to explain what is actually going on.

2. The adjustments to the stories of various of the characters seem like logical responses to the clear challenge of how to make some of these characters interesting who otherwise don't really do much in the first book. Apart from finding the dagger, Mat is a non-entity in the first book; Perrin has a great POV stretch but you'd never know he was interesting without being in his head. I think the show has mixed success in responding to these difficulties: they've successfully transformed Mat from the least interesting character to the most (obviously in the books Mat starts to become excellent from about book 3 and especially book 5); Perrin so far is a bit wait-and-see but I can see what they're trying to do. In some ways the adjustments to Mat's character are more subtly dramatic which is perhaps why they work more effectively at least initially.

3. Rand and Egwene, despite having the most screen time initially, are perhaps the least developed, which kind of makes sense given the intention appears to be to set them up as, effectively, duelling protagonists who are at once connected and opposed and who probably each get less likeable and more complicated as they go along. Both actors seem fine.

4. Nynaeve's character and actor do a lot with a little so far. The way the Nynaeve / Lan relationship is being set up seems fun.

5. I'm a bit surprised by how clearly they have set up some of the cosmic/philosophical questions that only come into view in the final few books. The nihilist worldview expressed by the darkfriend in episode 3 was a big surprise but I cautiously approve - makes the question "what do the evil forces actually want" a much more interesting issue than it was for at least the first few books - whereas Tam's short speech on reincarnation in episode 1 is basically a foreshadowing of the books' effective moral resolution in The Gathering Storm (if the show ever gets that far, I'm sure it will flashback to Tam's speech at that point).

6. Conversely, I do not like the implied adjustment to Ishamael's backstory. This is a much bigger deal to me than the whole "anyone, male or female, can be the dragon" adjustment which the fanbase (predictably and depressingly) is more upset about.

7. We definitely need more Moiraine backstory or to see more from her POV (and I suspect we're going to get one or both soon). Her general air of mystery feels a bit unearned and generic-fantasy at this point.

8. Totally approve of the whitecloaks' beefed-up menace, though the distinction between Eamon and Geofram's attitudes to Aes Sedai isn't really explained.