RJ himself called it on this show: "You just don't tell them as well as Thom, " Rand cut him off hastily, and Perrin hopped in. "You keep adding in things, trying to make it better, and they never do." "And you get it all mixed up, too," Rand added. "Best just leave it to Thom."
"My epic, if I compose it-- and Loial's book-- will be no more than seed, if we are both lucky. Those who know the truth will die, and their grandchildren will remember something different. And _their_ grandchildren's grandchildren something else again. Two dozen generations, and you may be the hero of it, not Rand." -Thom to Elayne, _The Shadow Rising_ (Condemnation, not praise)
I remember reading somewhere that while preparing for the first season of The Witcher for Netflix, the show-runner didn't actually read any of Sapkowski's books, she just had an assistant print up a summary, a Cliff-Notes, so to speak. Meanwhile, Rafe Judkins took a picture of himself holding all of the volumes in his arms, as if declaring "See, I have this massive stack of books in my arms, I'm a huge fan of The Wheel of Time!", when in all probability, he did a similar thing and just read a synopsis that he had one of his assistants crank out. Can I prove it? No. But I think the results speak for themselves. Big fans of IPs usually produce works that, be they clumsy or articulate, get across that love of the material that is being adapted. I detect no such love in "The Wheel of Time" and may even sense a certain....disdain, I suppose, for the old-fashioned world-view of James Rigney Jr. aka Robert Jordan. But, that's showbiz. It wouldn't be the first time something like this happened, I just wish it hadn't happened to this particular series.
@@pavelowjohn9167 Exactly. I've stated before how Peter Jackson made a lot of changes to LotR, some of which worked, some I stringently disagreed with. However, not once did I ever leave the theatre thinking Jackson hated Middle Earth or was trying to subvert and 'repurpose' Tolkien's life work. I DO get that feeling with WoT, like they are purposefully trying to rape and destroy it.
@@pavelowjohn9167 I watched an interview where Rafe said they took several quotes from the book and they told the story using those as a map. Some quotes from the book. Not the books, but a few quotes from them. Rafe never intended to give us Robert Jordan’s tale. He only wanted the brand recognition and was tied to following the most very basic plot from the books so that he could claim it was an adaptation. If you changed the names of the characters and locations and called channeling magic instead then they would have an original series of their own. They needed the brand so they could pull in an inherited audience knowing that it would completely piss off the existing fandom and create online controversy, feeding the marketing team and the blue check marks that love the show. It’s been done before and they will do it again with LOTR. Prime entertainment has a clear mission to ‘modernize’ audiences and their direction comes from Salke, the head of Prive Video. Rafe is a captain in the army, not a general…. This is all going to get a lot worse.
WoT Show Runner: We aged up the characters so that it didn't seem like a YA show. Also WoT Show Runner: Let's create love triangle that didn't exist in the books and turn Aei Sedai "politics" into something on the level of Mean Girls.
Yeah, that confused me so much watching the show. I thought he wanted the characters to act more mature, but there was more teenage relationship drama than in the book.
The thing that really irked me was the cold open to episode 8. I thought a lot of the skewing of the lore could have been explained away by ignorance of those in the present day. But showing Lews Therin directly drove home that it was wrong. The decision to try and seal the Bore was not made sitting around in a nursery casually debating its merits. This was an act of desperation from a leader who knew that they were losing the war against the shadow and that something had to be done.
I agree. The episode 8 cold opening confirmed to me that the world in the TV series was very different to the books, and what we'd heard previously wasn't from unreliable narration. I now lean towards thinking of the TV series as a rewriting of the lore and not just an adaptation. :-/
@@amys0482 when they drilled the bore the Aes Sedai didnt know their was such a being as the dark one. it was while sealing him and the 13 that Lewis Therin caused the male half of the one power to be corrupted, not in the period of freeing him
@@kitten9416 pretty sure she knows the book lore. Her comment is about how poorly whatever version of it the show is going with is explained. Also, one other thing that I don't think Any leaned into hard enough was the disagreement between the Origin lore shorts and the show. Honestly, I question whether the show / Rafe agrees with that lore. Which is highly problematic. You can have the show contradict that lore.
@@kitten9416 Correct. I understand what happened in the books. The show MAY be trying to change this to make it LTT's fault, but it could also just be confusing writing. I don't know. 🤔
Adapting the entire 14 book series into 8 seasons with 8 episodes each is a titanic duty “heavy as a mountain” no argument. Adapting B1:EotW into an 8 episode season is not IMO. Before the season released I expected many changes because I assumed they’d have to squeeze 2 books into S1, and I remember when E6 title, Flame of Tar Valon, was first leaked thinking, “wow, they must get to EotW by then because the title suggests we are meeting Siuan in Fal Dara which was at beginning of B2. Not the case, S1 is largely B1 and they had 8 episodes. LotR:FotR’s, GoT:SoI&F & WoT:EotW are all comparable in page count, character count & world building scope. Jackson nailed FotR’s in 3.5 hours, D&D nailed SoI&F in 8, no excuse for Rafe stumbling out of the gates. The only difference in these 3 productions is “FAITH” to the source material. Jackson & D&D stayed faithful, Rafe went rogue, and story suffered in general and definitely as an adaptation.
32:50 and they removed all the stakes that were part of being the Dragon Reborn. In the books it was hyped up as being essentially the Anti-Christ. Something that was a necessary part of getting through the end of days, but definitely not something anyone would want to be. Their reactions at hearing one of them may be the Dragon tells it all, they barely react at all.
I vaguely remember when I first read the Eye of the World as a teenager I thought that the last line from Moraine about the Dragon Reborn meant she was a darkfriend.
Rand pretty much compares him to the Dark One in the first book. In the show he is just the stronger channeler who ever lived. And none of the EF5 think about the implication of one of the boys being him, i've seen many non readers thinking the DR isn't going to be affected by the corruption.
45:30 two scenes from the show prove to me that the writers aren't hobbled by needing to fit too much per episode. The first is the scene where Moiraine talks about the fall of Manetheren. In the books it was a multipurpose scene. It happened during an attempted lynching of Moiraine, showing that Aes Sedai are next to Darkfriends in the eyes of many people, it establishes that Moiraine is clever at diffusing antagonistic situations, and it establishes that Emond's Field is a backwater where truth is what stories they've heard and very little personal experience. Instead it is purely a telling of the story of Manetheren. It accomplishes nothing apart from dumping lore on the audience and boosting the showrunner's ego because he "kept people entertained" with a 5 minute scene of nothing but 5 people riding horses. The second is the Breakbone Fever scene. Another multilayered scene. First as a blatant establishment that Nynaeve could channel as it was the story of her first experience doing so, second as a means of telling the audience the symptoms of channeling so we'd be able to see them when Rand does so, and third as establishing in the world that a Wisdom would need to understand that she couldn't heal everyone (in the mind of Nynaeve's teacher) that would have backfired for Nynaeve that would increase her likelihood to believe with the Power she could heal everyone. In the show it's nothing but a "girl power" moment for Egwene. Both are lifted out of their contexts and uses to the story to serve whatever function the showrunners want to say.
I'd have to go find it, but RJ himself said he thought a story where, "The hero of the story is tapped on the shoulder and told he is the savior of the world but will go crazy in the process" was an interesting concept. He liked the idea, and it makes for a great story obviously. The writers seemed to have missed that. That core element is central to the story. It's the heart of everything, and yet we get almost nothing of the prophecies. Virtually nothing on Saidin and it's issues. Ta'veren are mentioned but not explained much. They've even added a few, which is alright I guess, but it creates more plot armor and RNG. What's worse is that in one of the episodes they confuse the prophecies by questioning whether they're even true or not. Which may be a legitimate problem for the people in this world, but to your point it just adds more and more mistrust for the viewer. They are being told they cant trust almost anything they see or hear. It feels cheap and contrived, when there are constant GOTCHA moments. Especially if they don't land well. The problem is that if they deviate too much here in the beginning, by the end of the show we'll be WAY off. The one power has become plot armor in a lot of ways which irritates me. We as viewers need help understanding how complicated things are in this world. Which the show has done almost no work to accomplish. They have precious time to tell the story. They need to make better decisions on what they show. The plot holes are already starting to appear. Also, an episode and a half of Thom is a crime. #BringBackThom
That interview with RJ is tacked onto the end of the audiobooks. He specifically says he was trying to write a story where being the Chosen One is just the worst. He also specifically wrote about how people who grew up in the country would respond to being told what to do. The show doesn't capture this, but it seems to be deliberately telling a different story. The problem is I am one season in and I don't know what the story is :/
I remember impossibility of raising the dead being a big thing in the book. And they just did it like that in the show for nothing else than shock value. The whole thing falls apart with random changes to the story.
The hole magic system is warped in this 'adaptation' they took the liberty to rewrite the rules... they can all channel like nothing with no training whatsoever, the girls can link and, heal multiple people and bring people back to life...
I'm not giving them any passes from the suposed impact covid 19 had on the production. If anything it makes me even more mad that they think it's okay to delivering a subpar product now and it will be excused. No, if the foundation is bad then it's hard to come back from that. They should have delayed the show and made sure that the big scenes could be done instead of doing what they did now.
Appreciate your reviews I just want to push back a bit on something that seems to be becoming accepted dogma. "They need more episodes it is impossible to get 14 books into 7-8 seasons with 8 episodes each" This is nonsense. First there is no guarantee this will ever be finished. Starting season one with the expectation of finishing the series is nothing more than hubris if that is what is driving their decisions. They were given one season initially and then green lighted for 2 and now 3? If this show flops there will not be a 4th or 8th season for that matter. The objective from the beginning should be to deliver a good show nothing more. If it is good and continues to be good more seasons will come. The idea they are required to fit x amount of books into one season is just bad thinking. They need to make each season work regardless of how many books it covers because if it is bad, we will never reach the end regardless of how many episodes they are given. In this case they seem to have gone the route you are describing thinking they have to shoehorn x number of books into each season, and it left us with a rushed mess. There is no rule that the series needs to be finished the only rule is it needs to be popular enough to continue making more. There is no rule they even have to finish the first book if doing so makes the show suffer for it. If you make one of the most popular shows on the planet you get as many seasons as you want. I keep hearing this repeated and it bugs me. Thanks for the review I did enjoy it my quibble aside.
Completely agree. My point was that trying to fit in all the books would lead to something bad so they SHOULD retell the story differently. But each season still needs to deliver a good story and especially the first season. I don't think they achieved that. I don't even know what they were trying to do.
There's a logical reason for attempting to mirror a book series structure. Each book theoretically ends on a closure, tying up opened conflicts and setting up future ones, so it should be a good milestone for a season (or multi-movie series) to aim for as well.
@@bidossessi It should be, but in this case it forced their pacing and instead created something that feels rushed and with little to no depth. If that is the reasoning they are going with, then this seems destined to fail. I don't think they have shown a real dedication to anything more than the bare surface of the books so they should feel free enough to come up with a season end.
You have to be realistic as a show runner though. You can't think "If this is good maybe I'll get 20 seasons to tell the entire story." You know that you are working on a very finite budget of both dollars and time. If they somehow get through six seasons and they have condensed so much material that they are running out of original content from the books and yet the show is still hugely popular they could easily reintroduce content that they previously chose to skip.
There's also a real problem with how they treat prophecy in the show: the reason given for Moirraine's hesitancy about the Karatheon Cycle is that the prophecy has been translated a million times by a bunch of people so who knows what's true. However, this sort of `low materialist' explanation for the failure of prophecy is not how it works in the books: As far as I can remember, basically every prophecy that was ever actually stated in the books ends up coming true: however, outside of a very specific prophecy concerning Tear they all tend to come true in a way that was unexpected. Like Prophecy is real in this world and is given great respect, that's why Morraine left on her journey in the first place.
The bigger problem with this for me is that she has been studying this for 20 years. There are ways of determining the legitimacy of sources, even really old ones. Casting doubt on the prophesy now means that she may have been wasting her time for 20 years, despite being present for a foretelling... It's just needlessly confusing.
Great analysis of the series. I agree that Rand should have had equal focus as Egwene and Nyneve. I would be ok with them helping with the battle but have Rand use the one power to finish off the Trollocs to show he’s the Dragon Reborn.
So glad that I came across this video! I’m a book reader (haven’t finished the series yet) and I watched with my girlfriend who’s new to WOT, you totally hit the nail on the head with them establishing too much too early! If they had spent more time establishing what was more relevant to EOTW it would have felt so much more accessible to new fans, as the first book/season should be. Loved this breakdown, definitely excited to see more vids from you!
Unfortunately most of the complaints seem to come down to decisions made because of the political climate. The odd thing is that most of it wasn't necessary. They decided that the primary focus of season one was to emphasize the "female power" aspects, which is great because this WAS a theme of the books, but unfortunately they did it at the expense of the three boys, leaving them underdeveloped and underutilized. It also led them to making decisions like going to Tar Valon in order to flesh out the Aes Sedai (which could have waited until Egwene and Nynaeve went to the White tower next season) instead of going to Caemlyn where they could have retained a more intimate focus on the characters and concepts relevant to the first book. It also led to decisions like having Nynaeve have to tell Lan how to track moraine, not focusing on explaining the Dragon/Dragon Reborn, stripping Rand of his big moment at the eye of the world, focusing on the breaking being caused by "male hubris" instead of just doing the prologue, and many other small/smaller decisions. And all of that despite the fact that the Wheel of Time already had a heavy focus on female power. Literally all they had to do was update some of the woman to do female power better than RJ did, because I recognize that he tended to make powerful women unpleasant to show their power. Fix that and you already have a very modern story without sacrificing 3 of the five main characters to mediocrity.
And they also failed at fixing that. Their prime example of "female power" in the show is Suian Sanche shouting "This is MY tower, MY city, MY WORLD!" like a supervillain. Plus the fourth oath thing, which is so tyrannical that even Elaida's closest supporters in the books were horrified by the very idea. She went from hard but usually fair to crazy tyrant. They also changed her from a great political schemer to a totally incompetent politician who can't even keep a woman on trial from deflecting so completely that her own closest ally ends up on trial instead, and for much lesser "crimes". I'm afraid to think what Elaida (or Liandrin, if they really are combining them) will have to do to make Suian look like a good and just ruler by comparison. Full-on Compulsion on all dissenters maybe? At least the whole box incident and her bungled attempt to destroy the Asha'man will make Suian look like a political genius. Another point of "Caemlyn would have been better" is that Morgase being queen, her youngest child being heir because only women can inherit, and and her top advisor being Elaida gives a great example of broader female leadership in the world, even without the One Power. And Morgase being merciful to this random peasant boy who has broken into the palace grounds and started chatting up her daughter would have made women in power look a lot better than power-mad Suian's petty cruelty. We could have had a bit of Aes Sedai politics there as well by having the Logain party and Moiraine interact with Elaida and the queen.
Most reasonable people totally agree with you about what a "Faithful Adaptation" is. Elias being gone makes perfect sense to me. Showing Thom later makes sense, showing Min later makes sense. Removing Baerlon and Camelyn BOTH doesn't make any sense and you know this. Removing every great thing that any man does in the books doesn't makes sense, unless you understand the showrunner's personal politics... I don't know why I have to keep telling people this, but this show is NOT a faithful adaptation, it's not even an adaptation. It's a re-imagining that borrows heavly from the original. I would have been happier if they went with a completely new turning of the wheel and gave all the characters new names. RJ said that the champion of the light isn't always Rand or his soul itself, and that it could be a woman in another turning. Tell us that story but don't sell us on the idea that you're going to adapt the story when you're not.
At the very least, in their minds, they're "correcting" the books, which in their point of view, were problematic. (Mostly, the real spine of the books and the One Power, the binary sex Dynamics)
9:10 a bigger issue is the precedent it sets, where all races built up in the books are ignored to fill a diversity quota for the show. One among many issues that tie back to a lack of respect for the world built by the books as races from the books are traded for the racial needs of the showrunners. A fundamental shift in the viewpoint of the showrunners from accurately depicting the world of Wheel of Time and into fixing a problematic source. If they had made Mat the same color as the rest of them, that would have been better. But they didn't. It shows they agree with the "racists" that think the Emond's Fielders should be white but they're changing their color anyway. They did it with costumes too, ignoring a very detailed sense of fashion built into culture that was painfully detailed in the books is ignored for whatever the "artists" running the show feel like including. They have a lot of different cuts and styles of clothes and hair, but they're not tied to places in the books. Liandrin is a good example, as it could be argued that her hair is Taraboner but her dress, and use of pants, definitely isn't. She's actually the closest I could think of to a distinctive style that was true to the books, and the entirety of that was her hair being similar but still different.
I've enjoyed your reviews all season long. I'm constantly impressed by how you're able just come on here talk, with structure and purpose. But I love how you share some of your bloopers 🥂
you said "the writers dont understand the central conflicts of the story" this is so so so true. i actually started getting concerned over a year ago when the first material put out by amazon stated that the dragon will save the world or destroy it. that is so wrong, its suppose to be save the world and destroy it. that small change changes the entire dynamic of rands arc into something less compelling and less interesting.
Your take on the shows writing is spot on. Dont know what they were thinking with a lot of their choices. They had a real opportunity at the end of the season to satisfy the book readers with a refreshing change (most readers that ive spoken to think EotW ending is clunky) and they completely fluffed it.
I actually think the book ending for the EotW is okay in concept. It is confusing to read but I think it could have been visually told pretty well. I would have foreshadowed "a reservoir of clean Saidin for the DR to fight the DO" early on in the story and maybe changed how and when they know it is in jeopardy, but the concept could have worked.
@@amys0482 I want to underline this point. Confusing to read, but a closer adaptation of the ending could have cleared it up, and been way more visually stunning than a pan-around shot of Rand doing... nothing, really. The book lore of the Eye -- the sacrifice of men and women together, to preserve the Horn and banner and a little bit of clean Saidin -- is so much more impressive than the show's quick explanation of sa'angreal. But showing that would have required the writers to have first explained the difference between Saidar and Saidin. Ugh. Did they adapt the Eye, in part, because they refuse to acknowledge the split in the One Power? Rewatching the scene, it appears Rand's hand is empty as soon as the Seal breaks, so did the writers destroy the sa'angreal as well, to save themselves a problem? Ugh. And I understand the writers wanting to split the party to give the girls and Perrin something to do, but then they gave that something to Amalisa, and everyone else, Lan and Perrin included, were just hanging around for exposition and a little bit of fan service. Ugh.
I'm sitting here listening to your review and everything you are saying about the challenges for the show are right but seemed like this was a prime series to be an animated series. Alot of these challenges could have been solved in animated series. I don't particularly like animated series. But after watching Arcane I've changed my mind on that a bit.
@@MohseenLala yes. And it's the only thing I like about the series at all. If they had taken as much care in the show as they did in the shorts with the lore the show wouldn't have been as bad. It almost makes me think it was 2 different show runners
@@SonOfSeth Arcane is the best thing I've seen on tv in the last 10 years. And I'm not exaggerating. But shows should be held to a standard. And if a video game company can make a high tier fantasy show then there's no excuse for Amazon with an 80 million dollar budget to do the same.
@@Dovieandi_Se_Tovya_Sagain I agree, I just think I could have been indiferent to it like just another failed and misguided adaptation. But when there is Arcane and it shows how well it can be done, WoT comes off even worse in comparisson, almost insulting to it's viewers intellingence and artistic sensibilites.
Your take on the series was knowledgeable, honest and to the point. I truly wish the show producers and writers watch your video, it would help them. ( I have read all the books and I am a huge fan of TWOT) For me the idea of taking Rand's moments of learning how to channel and channeling and limiting it to a 2 min clip was a that was exposed in Episodes 7 was a disappointment and a missed opportunity to develop the Dragon Reborn, the tant, etc.... The reasoning behind the lack of screen time was to push the mystery of who the Dragon Reborn was...out of the 5 characters from Edmonds Field (EF) including the women. That idea for whatever reason was horrible! I would like to understand why the writers did it? Was it to strengthen the female character because female characters are so weak in the books so they thought they needed to equalize the balance of power?...no! because the wheel of time female characters are crazy strong, capable, and for the most part in power positions especially with the one power! The Dragon Reborn mission is to cleanse the male side of the source, restoring balance and defeat the Dark One. The concept in not hard to understand, but apparently for the brain trust of this show it is! It seems to me that the writers and producers want to fully degrade the taveern roles of Matt, Perrin and especially Rand have and share it with other female characters. Will they drop that whole concept that Rand needs Matt and Perrin to achieve wins? I could not believe that they messed up Rand's hero moment at the end of the book. It could of been so simple and would of made most of us happy. He finds the horn, teleports to the battle and kicks ass with the the male side of the force uncontrollably...in which they could of introduced the voices in his head, it would of been an epic 😎 finish and what we expected. This is why so many fans are so disappointed with the series. I can except some changes and will rolled with some disappointment, but not at this level of disrespect for Jordan's world. One of the main reasons I love these books was the balance of power was in favor of the women and the men were prosecuted, hunted and gentled. Jordan's world is not perfect but I give him full credit for creating extremely important, interesting and strong female roles. The brain trust should not mess around with the main structure of the story. They have the content and yes the job is not easy on what to cut, but they are so better off the GOT last 2 seasons that didn't have anything to work with, and that resulted in bad writing, I can forgive them. But The Wheel Of Time is a completed story all they need to do is edit and not mess up the main storyline. What is next will they take some accomplishments from the female characters and give them to male characters to balance out screen time? I say don't mess with the main plots of one of the best selling fantasy series. (It is a best seller for a reason) Next I would like to talk about the casting. I do understand both sides of the discussion that you brought up and I do like the idea of blending in different races. I have no problem with it and believe that the cast is wonderful. Once again thank you for your show I look forward to part 2!
So glad to finally find someone who isn't hating on the show because they think it's "woke", but rather because it actually has a bad and confusing storyline. Your review is fantastic and completely echoes what I think!
I actually think that "wokeness" is potentially an issue, but I wouldn't frame it that way. More like Rafe is trying to be inclusive but the cost was maybe higher than intended.... Will attempt to cover in my next video.
I'd just like to touch on Loial. His screen presence was absolutely amazing to me. He doesn't look like I imagined him. His face and ears are not as animated. But man does he feel like Loial. If anything the show has left me wanting more of him. His ability to just spew exposition into certain scenes naturally and with comedic timing was great. I watched so many reaction videos of none readers instantly fall in love with him. Thanks for another great video Amy I enjoy the community and your views around the show more then I do the actual show. Are you going to react to the animated shorts? I'm highly interested in your opinions on those. In my opinion these felt more like The Weel of Time then the show did. I had hoped for the level of the show to be in par with LOTR. Maybe this was setting the bar to high.
I wish he looked better, and I wish they gave him more screen time, because I agree that Hammed Animashaun did a wonderful job with his performance. He is such a lovable character.
@@nineradvocate Personally if the character feels right I can adjust to certain changes more easily. I also would have loved for him to get more screen time. He kind of disappeared in Fal Dara for a bit.
Omg, this was spot on. Subbed. I really like hearing your thoughts. I will say, and I don't know if this falls under Actor or Writing, but Rand and Egwene having tears in their eyes when they talk to each other every other scene got a little old.
17:26 I know why the show didn't give Elyas's mentor role to Lan. It's also the same reason that Lan's important mentor role to Rand and Mat from the books was dropped. And why Tam didn't teach Rand about the Flame and the Void like he should have. And why Thom didn't train Rand and Mat in the art of juggling and music. And so on, and so on. It's because the show - and the entertainment industry in general - absolutely *hates* *Fathers* and anyone who is a surrogate father to children. All portrayals of Dads are as useless, absent, abusive, or incompetent parents. The Wheel of Time is only slightly more egregious than most content nowadays in this war on Fathers. But it's an undeniable and established pattern of disdain for Dads.
Oh, interesting. I didn't get this from the show. I actually think they've gone out of their way to show many positive examples of fathers. Lan's family, LTT with a baby, Rand holding a couple of different babies, the Grinwell family that is killed, Siuan's father. I mean... I think some of the writing is clunky, but I wouldn't say fathers are being undermined or under represented. We did not get Lan's mentorship of the E5, though. I'll cover that in my next video.
@@amys0482 What you're describing is men having emotions for their kids, but what I am talking about is that there are no examples of fathers *mattering* to their kids. There's an important difference. For example, Siuan's Dad seems nice on the surface, until you realize that he needs _her_ help, and she doesn't need him for anything (she's so strong and independent that she needs no man, and leaves him behind, homeless and an outcast from his community). And he also just abandons her by not traveling with her to keep her safe or help guide her, which no loving father would ever allow to happen. LTT appears to love his child, yes, but he then goes off and destroys the world in his arrogance and abandons that child to suffer in a post-apocalyptic nightmare. That's an awful portrayal of fatherhood. My question is: Where are the scenes of Fathers *mattering* in their kids lives, and helping to foster their growth and development? Teaching, mentoring, protecting, or just being important to their children? Mat's father is abusive. Perrin's dad no longer even exists. Rand leaves Tam without more than five seconds of...I don't know whether his expression was sadness, or indigestion. We see Siuan spending more time taking care of her Dad than we see Rand interacting with Tam. Unfortunately, when you're not a man, or a father, these constant insults to fathers are just overlooked. The hatred has become normalized because it's so common, so I'm not surprised you cannot see it, even when it's pointed out and such a strong pattern exists in just a single show. Honestly, it's disgusting how the entertainment industry as a whole today just hates fathers, male role models, or any kind of portrayal that suggests men could be important in kid's lives.
Though Witcher season 2 has finally bucked this trend with Geralt, vessimir and the other witchers being fatherly to ciri. With a touch of motherly berating from Triss, as fathers can be too hard on kids.
@@RoryMitchell00 I'd double down on that, adding there is no positive representation of men in the show whatsoever. Men are either plain incompetent (Lan, Tam, Perrin, LTT, Siuan's Dad), bigots (Agelmar), clueless simps (Rand), useless (Loial) darkfriends (Matt) or straight up villains (Padan et al). Even the Warder Stepin, the traumatized warder decides to just kill himself instead of e.g. going to fight Shadowspawn and lose his miserable life for a just cause.
Holy shit. This is an awesome review! Glad to discover your channel and about to binge all your previous content. This video is so spot on. Between your channel and Books and Bianca, I'm loving the deep analysis of the technical filmmaking aspects of the show. My biggest gripe has been the writing all the way through. They do a bad job of creating narrative setups and payoffs within and between episodes.
Hi Amy, Happy New Year 😀 I really enjoy your channel and your in depth analysis of the episodes. I also have a lot of respect for you that you changed your opinion in the Season review. I watch this with my Wife, non-reader of the WoT, and have great difficulty saying “that wasn’t in the book” or “Rand did this…”. She has really enjoyed the season though she did think the writing was a bit weak. We spent a lot of time discussing Ep 8 and the battle at Tarwins Gap. Not giving Rand the key moment of defeating the trolloc army was unforgivable in my opinion. As far as the season is concerned “who is the Dragon and why do we care?” For the readers of the series we know that all the Edmond’s Field characters are strong in their own way and are integral to the story. With luck Season 2’s writing will be better and they will devote more time to the overall story arc. Thanks for your channel and please keep going.
I understand things needs cut, the books are huge and long.. was accepting of that premise.. until we got a tangent episodes dedicated to Logain (whom I adore in the books), and Sad Warder episode. But then get told endlessly, there wasnt enough episodes/ they have to trim something... then reminders of those two episodes, again...
love this review! the note about worldbuilding and how it needs to connect to plot to translate is so good and such a damning read of this show specifically (though I do think this is a major weakness of the source material too. the books pretty much just grind to a halt every time something needs to be explained or re-explained by internal monologue) feels like this also probably plays into other things like character depth, thematic development, etc. maybe the reason the books sometimes feel bloated and the show feels rushed is the same, ie the wheel of time’s plot doesn’t always effectively serve all of these purposes at the same time. but because the world is so intricate when the show tried to condense and solve some of those plot/story issues they ended up breaking a bunch of other things in the process (rules of the magic system, character nuance, sometimes basic logic, etc)
Once again great analysis. The last few years have produced a tWoT cottage industry that Amazon has wormed its way into. Im not saying Amazon pays anyone but they have garnered influence through access. The biggest names in this industry now all lean into the showrunner's use of "feels before reals" and fail to apply strong methods of critique. Thankfully a new light has sprung up in the darkness. You use very fair and well balanced points to explain your views. Maybe I'm showing bias as your opinions are similar to mine but I do find your videos refreshing to watch. I like to see you move into critiquing other works, particularly book as I dont watch many shows. Id also be interested in videos on yourself to show how youve developed you analysis skills. After that its channel cross-overs, examples may include Phillip Chase, A Critical Dragon and Mike's Book Reviews
In order to avoid copyright strikes/claims you have to minimize the amount of time you show certain shots or scenes. Never use more than 2-3 seconds of consecutive material. Try using clever ways of obstructing the view on the material you use (e.g. by flipping it vertically and/or covering certain parts of it partially with watermarks or graphics "leaning" into the frame of the image). This way you "destroy"/"distord" the source material enough so it won't get picked up by TH-cam's automatic upload filter algorithms. Also: Avoid using chunks of material that have original soundtrack - music almost always triggers the upload filter system.
Sharing this video with as many people as I can. You are absolutely right about the Mary Sue women and stolen moments for the men. It hurts all of these characters. I've written a lot about this, but you stated it very eloquently here.
I really wish that I could give this more than 1 "Like". It's great to see such a criticism of the disaster that is season 1 without the hate that some folks are throwing out there. Looking forward to the next video. Keep it up!
It is criticism of the show that has made me buy the 1st book. I actually bought it as a kid when it was first published! but didn’t get into it and so didn’t get past the 1st few chapters, it sat on my self unread for years before getting rid of it. Just Re-bought it on a kindle now as a adult and I am half way through it, nice Xmas read. So… in one way criticism has had a positive effect.
I would really like to see you do an character breakdown from book to series. For examples: Lan while more stoic in the books, his character traits of duty and honor were very well realized in the character during specific moments (getting help for Morraine's trolloc wound, designated mourners for Steppen) Nyneave in the books has a strong personality. Practical, independent, compassionate, but her pride borders on hubris and creates character conflict. Perrin in the books is quiet, but his protection instincts are a huge character trait. In the show they are depicting him having internal conflict on the line between protection versus violence.
Glad I found your channel, I'm one of this people that have read these books many times, but I forced myself to try to give it a chance...I totally agree, the writing is awful. They forget their own canon, they can't do set up and payoff. They rely on weak tropes. I'm still confused why they added 2 episodes to go over the warder bond then, decide not to use that set up. I'd be OK if they killed moraine.. or stilled her (She's not stilled a certain person good with knots will help in s2) either way would give that arc set up with Lan now losing the bond. The removal of import roles from male characters is the meta of the age we live in, but it could have been done better, and within the existing canon of the show, like have the men's council in Edmonds field discuss something, then the next scene the women's council discussing the same thing but in the "we really run this town, go and browbeat your husbands till they see sense"... ok that example might be hard to fit into an 8 episode story, but it would have set a better theme that women run the world in the current WOT time line. It's so frustrating they had a good story they could have hit the high points of book 1. Trimmed the fat. Created greatness. But I guess you need to be great to create greatness, or humble up adapt things greater than you could ever create
I'm not convinced they have read all of the books. They keep stepping on future plot lines. I just read some of the amazon reviews. I swear one of the guys might be a shill out on just to defend the show. I like your reviews. I might keep watching the series just to get your take on it. Keep up the good work, I am now a subscriber.
as for cuts to the books yeah i can see the need but then when they do things like episodes 5&6 inventing brand new characters, with scenes that never took place or are even needed and actually detract from character development, the argument of ' we don't have the time to do more from the books' sorta looks like a cop out argument, sure at episode 4 it was a reasonable argument then the rest of the season happened :|, As for Elyais being a remarkable coincidence to run into the only sane wolf brother, there is a perfectly logical argument to that, and that is he's a Ta'veren he pulls the pattern he bends it so that he has access to what is needed when he needs it. The 3 boys are walking talking mcguffins the pattern will do as much as possible to meet their needs to make things happen around them. But agreed he isn't an essential character but he does give context.
I liked your analysis very much. Will watch part two simply to see your thoughts on the consistently inconsistencies in this shows inherent logic system. Also realizing my prior sentence will land me my dream job of writing season two for As the Wheel Turns which I risk by pointing out that Moiraine cannot be stilled if she can’t lie.
I would like to come over anything u didn’t talk about I couldn’t, I divided this review perfectly n multiple times u let us know that the 2nd pat will discuss those moments. Great job, can’t wait to see Part 2. May u have happy holidays.
You have one of the best and most insightful critiques I have seen in the WoT-verse. I really appreciate your focus on storytelling. This is the kind of in-depth dissection (both good and bad) that I wanted to see from reviewers - and has been sorely lacking in my opinion. At this point I'm as tired of the apologists as the angry book purists. I agree with you, you can change all manner of things in an adaptation but it all still needs to make some sense and maintain an internal logic. While I have heard non-book readers mostly enjoyed this season, my impression is that the enjoyment was a very generic one and the attraction superficial, something easily forgotten when the next show comes along. I believe if you surveyed non-readers a few months from now many will not remember most of the plot in this season. I suspect the reason they have remained cagey about the duality of the one power is due to them trying to keep the identity of the Dragon Reborn a secret for as long as possible. I did not like this idea and didn't think it made the story more interesting. The explanation that "this is TV" and "we need drama and mystery" is unsatisfactory. Poor writing is poor writing. This construct allowed the show runners and writers to transfer plot points from the boys to the girls in some misguided attempt at "empowering" those characters. The girls had interesting enough character and plot developments that they don't need to take on the boys' plot points. I don't understand why they could not maintain the "mystery" element by focusing on just the 3 boys for the Dragon storyline. In any case, if they don't adequately explain Saidin and Saidar within the show (not extra shorts) by next season, some of the major plot lines in the later books will make no sense. Don't even get me started on what is being implied as the DO seals. If they are all that big and location dependent (ie set in a physical place) I have no idea how they are going to serve their role in the final battle.
The seals weren't even named as seals so.... miffed. The writing is just not logically consistent enough to garner a rapt audience. The visuals make up for some of that, which makes the show "passable" around the low 60s for me. It's watchable. But it's not good. I'll eventually get over it.
@@amys0482 Absolutely! I don’t recall if Leanne even used “keeper of the seals” when she announced the Amyrlin in ep 6. As you’ve said, this was a missed opportunity. They could have made this really great instead of just passable. I’ve also cut them some slack over issues around the pandemic restrictions and Barney’s sudden departure but those things only exacerbated the writing issues that were already present throughout the season. Those events in and of themselves did not cause the problems in the writing, only highlighted them in my opinion.
Thank you, Amy! Loving your balanced and accurate representation of what there was to appreciate, what to give a little leeway & understanding for, and what was just poorly produced or bad choices made, etc. I really hope that the show runners are paying attention to these videos by you and by Nerdy Nightly and others... especially Brandon freaking Sanderson.
Well done Amy - your analysis of the strengths and the weaknesses of the show are well explained. Watching you try to wrangle your cat while hearing all of this is a definite bonus :)
He actually interrupted my filming three or four times. I edited out most of them. He was climbing into paper bags full of Christmas wrappings and making a ruckus because he wanted attention.
I need a master class on how to be as articulate and verbally expressive as you are in the analysis of the WOT series. I tried really hard to like it and failed. Well done and please keep this up, it has inspired me.
@Amy Stewart Actually most Eamond Fielders are described as brown hair and brown eyed, now whilst you can argue that they are darker hair colours, when the Author actually uses the term Dark haired as a look, it means that its more of a, dark, medium and light hair colours, ergo Eamond Fields is a medium hair colour region. Since ,except in very rare genetic mutations, white people are the only ones with a variance on hair colours and people of colour only have dark hair that the EF's should for the most part be a homogenious white nation. So yes people who say they should be white are correct, especially when other events come up in the book such as when Egwene is saying that Nynaeve will have an easy time in Ebou Dar due to her tanned skin and dark hair when the girls are planning on sneaking in and there are other occasions where that is noted on as well. So saying this i do think the actors have done a somewhat decent job with the roles they were given but the writing could be effecting my judgement there as the writing is terribad.
Spot on review Amy! I did enjoy the TV show (maybe more because I love everything WoT). And have read the Books multiple times. Watching the reactions from non-reader was so much fun! So will buy the Amazon Prime Video pass for every season just because of that. But I'm also hoping for a Anime adaptation some day that can be more true to the Source material.
The best part of season 1 was finding this channel... I wholeheartedly agree with all the points and comments you`ve made. A BIG thank you for what you said in the end of this video. You are the first female I`ve heard pointing this out - how the show deliberately tone down the significance of men and giving it all to the females (imo not only a problem for the Emond`s field 3). Keep up the good work with the channel! :)
I'll be honest..I now appreciate just how good game of thrones season one really was.it absolutely decimates wot season one on every single level.theres no excuses,we've seen it done.ten years ago..this isn't exactly progress is it.
Heya Amy. Your analysis of the season is spot on. A huge disappointment for people that have actually read the books and a 'meh' season for people that haven't due to lack of explanations on the world building. I've been watching other WoT review channels, and without naming names, it seems some people are really in denial about how bad things have been so far. If Amazon really do want max 8 episodes per season like you said, then this is gonna be sad. At this point, WoT would be better served to be adapted into an animated series like Arcane.
Riot has the advantage of a whole creative team that has lived and breathed those characters for decades. Arcane is amazing and raises the bar. I dont think we'll get another shot at WOT as a live action show, but animated.... maybe?
@@amys0482 Maybe. *shrug* The graphic novels were adapted pretty well (just imo), so animating them with a creative and experienced team would allow the story to be told without having to worry about filming locations or budget for extras and so on. But yes, you are right that Riot's writing team for Arcane really did raise the bar for what's possible. Thank you for replying. This was the first of your vids that I watched and now I'm starting at your first one so I can experience your downwards spiral of disappointment and frustration haha. :D
@@SethQuado **spoilers** I truly loved episode 4. Episode 5 I liked as a kind of vignette stand alone. I thought it was emotionally moving. But it was a waste of time given how much there is to cover with the main cast. Episode 6 I hated and two episodes in a row with no development of the main characters was unforgiveable.
@@amys0482 *continued spoilers* I enjoyed 4 and 7 mostly, with 8 being obviously the worst. The problem with 5 is that too much time was spent on the warder thing; It *could* of been fine had season 1 been like 10-12 episodes long. Just that amount of time could of been used to explain Saidin/Saidar a bit more somehow to one of the characters in Tar Valon for example. Also, the 5 untrained/semi-trained channelers at the end + being physically burned out.. it's vexes me. I am quite vexed. lol. Anyway, I could talk for hours about this but I'd be parroting what you've already said which is why I enjoy your content, you and Books and Bianca both have good intelligent reviews coming from knowledgeable and passionate backgrounds without falling into the easy to complain "this sucks because woke culture" argument of other people. I look fowards to your part 2!
Thank you for a refreshingly well formulated review! I agree with almost everything, but I think you are to forgiving with the Covid-problems and Barney Harris leaving. They could have solved this so much better. It's extremely annoying how much unneccesary lore-breaking they are doing for seemingly no (or silly) reasons. I made a list of quite small changes (mostly just dialogue) that I think would have made the show stay much more true to the books and handling the Covid- and Barney-problems better, while still keeping the mysteries and themes they wanted to show. It wouldn't nearly fix everything, I just think it shows that most of the excuses beeing used for these problems are bad. Episode 1: - Cut the "if he was reborn as a boy or a girl" in the intro, and change "them" to "it" after "this child is coming of age, and I need to find it before the Dark does. - Remove cold opening (at least the transition with ta'veren). - Change Moiraines line to Nynaeve to "you're not from this village, are you?", indicating that she can be from one of the other Two Rivers villages, but still keeping the rest of their intention. - Replace Perrins wife with his blacksmith master, Haral Luhhan: Same struggle with violence, but more believable he didn't completely break down afterwards. - Change dialouge in the end: Have Moiraine tell them the Dark one wants one of the four of them for some purpose, in stead of saying one is the Dragon reborn. No lies, and it's reasonable for Moiraine not to tell them exactly why the Dark one wants one of the boys. The audience still believes any of them, including Egwene, can be the Dragon reborn. Episode 4: - Have Stepin go into warder rage immediately after Kerenes death, dying after beeing swarmed by dragonsworn. This shows better that he actually felt her death through the bond (in stead of needing to actually see her dead), and shows the horrible effect on the warder. The shards of his axes can be replaced by Logains cage, producing the same effect and ending of the episode. - Kill one of Alannas warders, then have the next episode focusing on her grief. Episode 6: - Moiraine can mention that one of the Two rivers people are the Dragon without specifying a number or gender. For Siuan it's obvious it's one of the boys, but the audience doesn't know. - Siuan can tell about just having heard about "Sightblinder means to blind the Eye of the World and slay the Great Serpent" from multiple sources, giving them the same reason to go there as in the books. Moiraine can say she believes the chances of success are best if all of the Two rivers people join, because some of them seem to be ta'veren and this can make the pattern swirl around them. - Moiraine says she has contained the taint of the dagger temporarily, but Mat has to regain his strength for days before he can be fully healed. - Remove the oath on the Oath rod, but replace it with a line, saying something formal like "You have sworn on the oath rod, and are physically bound to stay true to your oaths. Swear to me now, that you will respect my penance." - Have the Waygate be in the Tar Valon grove. Moiraine follows her oath of leaving Tar Valon, even though no one knows how she went away. - Mat can't come, because the taint of the dagger will make fades able to sense his presence (canon from the books). - Have the Waygate be opened by an avendesora leaf. Episode 7: - Have Agelmar grateful for their arrival, then dissapointed they're not there to help. It gets forth the point of rulers thinking Aes Sedai only care about themselves, but doesn't explicite say they think so in the borderlands. - One of Min's viewings can be that Moiraine can only bring one person to the Eye, if more comes they will all be killed. This set's up a reasonable motivation for her even to leave Lan behind. - Rand have the same realisation, only not realising specifically that he is the Dragon Reborn, only that he is the one the Dark One wants. Episode 8: - Change the dialouge between Lews and Latra so that they at least mention that Latra has another plan that she believes in. Remove the comment about throwing the world back thousands of years and that the women will pick up the pieces, the mention of exposing the source and risk of corrupting tells this well enough. Have Lews' title be only Dragon. The impression will still be that the Dragon was arrogant and doomed the world knowingly, and this can be revealed later to be just a part of the truth (as I suppose they intend to do now). - Keep the entire dialouge between Lan and Nynaeve from the books, to actually show why Lan won't marry. Have Nynaeve give him blessing to go after Moiraine instead of "the tell". - Remove the wall in Tarwins gap. - Have the defense of the wall be the walls of Fal Dara. - Next step is the circle (on the wall) taking out the bulk of the trollocs, with Nynaeve really angry before the link. - Nynaeve stabs Amalysa with her knife beacuse she starts letting the lightning down within the walls. - Final charge from the shienarans against the remaining trollocs (no need to show fighting on screen). - Moiraine tell's Rand she can't teach him (fish and bird). - Moiraine explains that the Eye is a Ter'angreal that is a well of pure saidin, 100 men and women dying to make it. It can be used in great need without the wielder going mad, making Rand less hesitant to use it. - After the pool is empty, they find the Dragon banner and a key to the chest with the Horn of Valere in the bottom. - Rand still goes off because he believes he will go mad eventually, and the chest is still stolen by Fain from Fal Dara.
The one thing I do have to say in terms of 'politics' is that they are half right about the politics being an important constitutive aspect of the enjoyability of the story for books 4 - 6 (and also the last 3 books): you do need to have the field mice swarming the main characters for their defeat of the field mice to feel satisfying, otherwise its just bullying and unearned and in that respect you gotta have some stupidity happening at the level of political representation occuring before the main characters step in with action/movement of history/prophecy to upend all that nonsense. But that means that you needed to have, as part of your story arc idea (that this whole season needed to be about `who is the dragon, why does it actually suck to be the dragon, etc.) all of that prophecy in place to make the win more satisfying (after all, the prophecy gives things meaning and depth, the politics actually strips meaning out of stuff and the satisfaction comes about through the movement between promised prophetic meaning w/o actual embodiment -> stripped meaning in politics w/o embodiment -> actual `real' meaning delivered in action).
First off Amy, well done! Despite your lack of knowledge in putting together TH-cam content and being a novice at this, (which doesn't particularly show, with the exception of picking the wrong mic), you are succeeding in giving us intelligent, well thought out and entertaining content. Your review here was exceptionally well written, (I even like writing in Fritz's errant behavior as comic relief), and you have done a phenomenal job of articulating your thoughts and viewpoints. Something our subject matter has failed to do! Plus you've done this with "consistency" through your entire review series. Something else the show lacks. Keep up the great work and I think your channel will be very successful! I think because I'm such a fan of the source material, and like you I wanted this series to be a huge success, I've overlooked _many_ of the things they've failed on. Your review is really striking home for me how poorly they've done at building this world, especially for non-book readers. In E04 when Nynaeve steps in and, out of desperation, has her moment, my breath seriously caught in my throat and I cheered and applauded and my heart felt warm because they gave us a moment that really showed how epic this show could be! Rand's moment at the Eye of the World should've been this, and more! It should have been so awe inspiring that viewers sat back and said , "Holy Shit! Now _that_ has to be the Dragon Reborn!", and left them salivating for the next season! In fact, had they done so, even without the proper world building indicating the consequences of failure, I think that all of the other plot holes/inconsistencies and any of the shortcomings caused by outside difficulties beyond their control could have been forgiven. As it is, The Dragon Reborn and the Eye of the World are completely irrelevant. None of the non-book reader viewers have any idea that the pool at the Eye was pure Saidin, nor was it used up in defeating "The Dark One" and the Trollocs with lightning and _waves_ of earth rippling and wiping out the hoard, without any Sa'Angreal help. Such a shame! The audience should have been floored.
Sadly, 10 episodes would not fix this re-write, I am certain that bloat is replaced by contradictory bloat with no pay off. I had fairly low expectations for this series. For me it was worth pursuing if it was 70% as good as the books. Until the last 3+ episodes it was kind of there, I was trying to stay positive. Throughout the series it felt rushed, poorly edited and written, also possibly filmed on an i-phone under fluorescent light. The cast seemed strong as a whole and the scenery was nice, I thought it had potential in the first half. At this stage I have little to no understanding of basic rules of this world, or have a connection to things I really should by now. Is there a Saidin and Saidar? Does it take a man to fix Saidin or can we just get Egwene upset near it? In Ep8 prologue, where was the desperation at the seemingly imminent victory of the dark when the Dragon had his “arrogant” moment? It didn’t seem to me that the leader lady of that time realised that he was the avatar of light/ hand of the creator. Why is the Dragon special? Can death/ stilling just be healed by sadness now? Why not use the fancy camera from ep7 cold open to let Lan look cool by actually swinging his sword for once? What was the "tell" when Nynaeve had to teach Lan how to track? The battle scene at the end could have easily been the most socially distanced responsible filming ever and still been well received. They just needed Rand to go nuclear. Instead, they nerfed him into freeing the dark one with a Mag-Lite so Egwene could be happy. That circle of wilders scene was a travesty in its entirety. I am annoyed at how nit picky and negative I became when I should have been more prepared for the show we got from a corporate Grey Man. I have enjoyed your breakdowns since I found you around ep 4, I will probably watch reviews rather than the show next year.
Thank you for your balanced point of view. It feels like on one side we have the r/whitecloacks of this world. On the other we have what i view as just as bad, the shining white knights that will defend season 1 as great in an almost zombielike fervor.
There are some of us fans that like the show but have serious grievances with it. Unfortunately social media seems to amplify the divide and force people into sides. IMO there are things to like about the show if you *want* to like the show, but it is unfortunate you have to put effort into liking the show. Regardless of how we feel about how the show compares to the books, we hoped for a show that was good enough to convey to people who haven't read the books just how amazing they are, and I think most book readers agree that the show has not done that as well as we hoped. Although all the discussion around the show seems to have done the job because I personally know non readers who have picked up the books as well as hearing people online say they're interested in checking them out now.
Nice work as usual Amy, thank you P.S. It's easy to remember Sevanna cause I'm about 2/3rds of the way thru Book 7 on my latest re-read :) but yea before this I would probably have had to look her up lol
C'mon people only 12 more subscribers to go!!! Let's make it happen this year. I loved your review and I'm frustrated with the end result of this season. I frankly just hate it and wouldn't mind if they cancel it, I think you've been awfully nice to them with your constructive criticism ;)
I enjoy your commentary and I think you've hit the nail squarely on the head. They need to stick to the source material because that is why this TV show is even happening. Millions of people love these books and that many people can't be wrong. Season 1 was a disaster. I don't know how they redeem Matt and Perrin or how or if Tom comes back into the show. Does the Band of the Red Hand exist in this show? Will the Two Rivers folk rally to Perrin after he murdered his wife? If they don't return to the original material they'll keep writing themselves into problems with no resolutions.
29:40 but that's the opposite of what they did. They went more in depth on things much earlier than the books. Part of the reason WoT works so well is because you get introduced to the world a piece at a time, the early books focus on establishing the characters and the scale of the world without much detail, and you get more into the mechanics of the world later, and then onto the larger knock-on effects of their actions on the entirety of the world toward the end. There are a lot of details there for people re-reading the books, but they don't really get noticed on a first read.
The books are fine crafted swiss clockwork. It is complex, thought out and very finely put together. To make changes, one has to understand the complexities. And be cognized of the possibility, that making changes could create plot holes.
Rafe goes on and on about setting up the show for certain payouts. Several of them are known: Nynaeve and her explosive healing. Moiraine and Siuan kissing then getting married with a double-ended oath rod. Shock of finding kneeling person is actually dead. Lan going full Klingon and announcing/screaming to Stovokor that another warrior is on his way to them.
Hi Amy. I think you perfectly nailed it in the first part of your video. It is a huge effort to film this and you prolly never can do it right. I think you have been a bit hard towards the end. Sure, it's not perfect, but considering everything you said in the first part, you could be more forgiving. I don't think episodes 7+8 were planned like they showed up, as you said, was corona crap. Season 1 was worldbuilding mostly. You are right, not every decision was good and not every story developed well, but I'm confident that they know what they do and that Season 2+ will only get better. And if you will review again, I will watch it:)
Great analysis. Have really been enjoying your honest criticism. Though, as critical as you were at times, I still think you are cutting them too much slack in places. ;) RE: Saidin & Saidar, The Prophecies, etc. ---- In an interview with Gizmodo: ` Rafe Judkins: "I think-well, I can’t tell you all of them, but in the books, there’s an idea that if you’re born as a man in one life, you’d be born as a man in the next life in the show. We’re not doing that. We’re approaching it as you are a soul and you move through different bodies through whatever life that you’re in. So that’s one. It’s a very fundamental change actually to make to the book series, and it has a lot of ripple effects, and we’ll continue to do things like that I think are more reflective of what hopefully Robert Jordan would be writing if he was writing today. "I think the idea that the Dragon Reborn doesn’t necessarily need to only be a male character, that’s really important. We see that play out in a number of different ways through the season. Also, as we learn, some of the Dragons of the past were women. How was that different? How did that affect the world? So that one change that we’ve made, it really does flutter through the whole series. I think it’s good to make changes like that and to put them in the show, even if it does have those effects." ---- So, Rafe has changed major, fundamental lore even though he knows that it breaks things. In other places he's said that he is changing the show to match his view of feminism (4th wave) and gender. He doesn't actually like the male characters or their plot lines in the books, he's said that he's more interested in the female characters (esp making Moiraine a 'queer' lead of a major fantasy show - even though the official WoT companion book flat out says "Neither [Moiraine nor Suian] was" - entry on Moiraine pg 499. I don't personally care just seemed like he's more invested in pushing a narrative than focusing on good writing and it's hurting the show all over the place. Meanwhile, this makes Saidin/Saidar and the prophecies all problematic for him. But it explains a lot of the flaws in the show. He's been saying all this openly from the beginning which is why a chunk of the fandom has been expressing concern. RE: The taint of Saidin. In the first few minutes of the show, Liandrin says to the male channeler, "This Power is meant for women and women alone. And when you touch it, you make it filthy." And that is really all that views have to go on. But, Rafe is basically saying that it is the men themselves that are the problem. It also implied from the very beginning that Saidin and Saidar were out. They may retcon this later to be truer to the books, but that is where it stands now... we'll see. RE: Elias They had time to invent completely new scenes and introduce throwaway characters (I'm looking at you Stepin). They had time for Elias. But introducing him would have meant actually building Perrin's character. They did all the male characters dirty - even Lan and Tam.
This is useful source material. I don't appreciate Rafe's take on souls and I don't think he understands that he is essentially defacing the author's artistic expression. I do not think robert jordan would have adapted his story this way. I am not sure what his position on the conversation around transgenderism would be, but I don't think it would be this.
@@amys0482 Probably the closest thing we have in the books vis a vis Jordan and transgenderism would be Aran'gar; though it is a poor analog. And, I think Rafe understands and just doesn't care. His changes seem very intentional and he's put plenty thought into it. Again, he's admitted he knows it will break things - he just doesn't care. He's making all sorts of changes based on his personal views.. For example, he's also changing the relationship Rand A/E/M relationship(s). From an AMA he did on Twitter back in 2018: Q: Rafe, will Rand's romance plot remain close to the books? I mean, liking one girl at first but ending up with three in the end? A: No. Let’s just say I’m much more interested in polyamory than polygamy. Just like Moiraine and Suian. Personally, I think it really takes away from female characters that apparently in Rafeland, females can't be close without being lovers. It makes their friendship seem cheapened somehow. Anyhow Rafe comments like these are littered all over the place - Twitter, Interviews, etc.
A faithful show would have been amazing. I could have settled for well written. We got a poorly written and unfaithful show. The actors did quite good with what was provided to them. I don't know what they spent the budget on, but noone that was concerned with good writing reviewed it, or was listened to when they did. Brandon must be pretty upset, and I hope this isn't hurting the chances for a Stormlight Archive show.
Im so late to the party but… I’m gonna be honest, one of the reasons I felt captivated was because I was watching a spoiler free review that explained everything and it made so much sense in my head that I kinda accepted the show logic. Watching the second season have read The Great Hunt I was so underwhelmed that I think I gaslit myself into liking the show but at least it instigated me enough to pickup the books 😂
'Diverse cast brings in a diverse audience' every Monday morning I would talk about the latest episode of GOT with my friend from Jamaica. Black people have loved squid game... not one Black person. AKA if it's good people will watch no matter their identity
@@amys0482 if it stopped there it wouldn't matter as much. But the moment you let them race/gender swap a character they take it as a green light to 'fix' other things. The swap in Dune seems to be the only exception... but I think it was read meat for sjws to celebrate 🍾 the rest of us complaining, instead of trying to cancel it because 'white savior movie' very clever 😉
@@paulwolfley7785 I haven't read Dune so I don't know what character you are referring to. I am FOR social justice generally speaking and I like seeing diversity in media. I don't like that ALL of the golden moments were taken from the male characters in the WOT tv show. It feels unbalanced in the other direction
@@amys0482 watch the expanse it checks every diversity box, but it has good writing and feels natural. It needs to make sense, if half the actors in a movie about ancient China were white that would be stupid
"My epic, if I compose it-- and Loial's book-- will be no more than seed, if we are both lucky. Those who know the truth will die, and their grandchildren will remember something different. And _their_ grandchildren's grandchildren something else again. Two dozen generations, and you may be the hero of it, not Rand." -Thom to Elayne, _The Shadow Rising_ (Condemnation, not praise)
It is confounding that they could depict Moraine, not knowing the nature of the dragon and that cosmologically, it must be masculine. How do you have a central conflict without the tainting of Saidin and how the dragon was implicated in that in the last age? In the books Moraine spent 20 years looking for the dragon and was likely one of the best informed on the topic; is it even possible that she would not know about this essential nature?
Lord of the Rings adapted 3 books with a lot of content in 11 hours (extended edition) Wheel of Time, which has a similar amount of material as JUST The Fellowship of the Ring novel was given around 7 hours. They plenty of time to adapt this book.
I can agree to the melodramatic acting to a certain extent. Examples are Moiraine (although her portrayal is fine overall, every line she delivered was done with such drama that it was just too much) and Liandrin who was also in my opinion just too much most of the time. It doesn’t help that the lines were not the greatest so the overly dramatic delivery makes it worse.
This is subjective, but I would blame the directing not the acting personally in this case. I might change my mind if we see these characters given arcs that the actors struggle to communicate even when the writing is good.
If season 2 of TWoT can replicate the cinematography, acting and action of the Ep 7 cold open then I will watch it. That was about the best scene (aside from the wonky eyes and CGI on Tam al'Thor) in the entire show. The next best scene is the Logain cold open. The worst of the show IMO is the entire Stepin episode. They could have explained the Warder bond without wasting so much precious time with a character that is irrelevant to the series. Your point though at 43:44 is spot on. I was tearing my beard out the entire first season wondering when Rafe and Co. were going to actually focus on the boys. You know.. the main characters of the entire series?
Here's my big question: how many times through did the writers and producers read the full WoT books series. I doubt most of them have even read the full series once. They should have made every one read it at least 3 times through, because you just can't grasp the intricacies of what makes it great from one read through. I agree that it was never going to be possible to be 100% faithful, and that lots of trusting would be required. But that's ALL THE MORE reason that the people doing the truncating and rewriting needed to be intimately familiar with the full story in order to do justice to its heart and substance.
The core of RJs Wheel of Time is off in the show. Without this strong base. U got something that can be whatever the showrunners want. So why not have Rand join the Dark One.And the Forsaken. And then let the Aes Sedai save everyone in last episode. That is so brave i think👏😳
12:40 if you can't see a message in the changes they made...as if they were honestly trying to adapt it and not "fix" it...I don't know what to say, at this point.
This was a very good critique if the show. I do think you are giving too many passes for the showrunner, but I can understand your reasoning behind it. As for me, I thought the writing was atrocious from the beginning and I never made it past the 3rd episode. Although, I have kept up with various reviews. So I know the basic story of the series. I don't expect any seasons to improve because the foundation of the story is in a horrible state. In fact, I fully expect the series to be canceled before season 3. Since Amazon is not releasing numbers, I base this on Google trends showing a peak of searches when the first 3 episodes aired to an immediate dropoff.
Solidify that the DR is a male who will go mad. Minimise the "who is it??" marketing ploy/gimmick, by making it clear that it is Rand earlier on. Show him being in denial, trying to hide it, being scared etc. Then him overcoming it to a degree at the EOTW but at the cost of him experiencing a sampling of madness (show the audience this). He then goes off on his own in a depressive state and to protect his friends. 10 years since I read EOTW so I don't really remember his arc but that would've been a better base to work from than basically ignoring him (except for when they wanted some teen love drama), and hiding info from the audience until the 7th episode, having him incredibly chill about being the DR and then just exiting the stage, again, in a very chill manner.
Can't help but feel as if they ended up going for a bait and switch tactic on who the dragon was. The result is they downplayed a lot of story lines to throw people off. This is silly as I still think that even removing my book knowledge Rand stood out as an odd duck, and the complete lack of doing much of anything with him as a character was telling as well. If you assume they are trying to hide something then you start looking for the least likely, which would be Mat and Rand (with Mat's issues in the story I feel like he is out of the running pretty quickly). I wish they had gone the route of just building up each character so that you struggled to pick out which cool skillset denoted them as the Dragon. Perrin with the wolf ability, push up some of Mat's gambler's luck story line, and for Rand show how quickly he wins over Lan with the sword training. You have to hide Rand's channeling of course, but I think that Lan telling Moriaine that Rand has the makings of a good warder would be enough.
17:20 to convince him he wasn't just going mad, but who cares about that? Or show him that not going feral was possible, but that's probably not important. Just have him know what he's doing because MC and do it because the story needs him to, I'm sure that's perfectly fine with a lot of Amazon's intended audience.
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RJ himself called it on this show:
"You just don't tell them as well as Thom, " Rand cut him off hastily, and Perrin hopped in. "You keep adding in things, trying to make it better, and they never do."
"And you get it all mixed up, too," Rand added. "Best just leave it to Thom."
Best quote ever. Copying this to Amazon.
"My epic, if I compose it-- and Loial's book-- will be no more than seed, if we are both lucky. Those who know the truth will die, and their grandchildren will remember something different. And _their_ grandchildren's grandchildren something else again. Two dozen generations, and you may be the hero of it, not Rand."
-Thom to Elayne, _The Shadow Rising_
(Condemnation, not praise)
I remember reading somewhere that while preparing for the first season of The Witcher for Netflix, the show-runner didn't actually read any of Sapkowski's books, she just had an assistant print up a summary, a Cliff-Notes, so to speak. Meanwhile, Rafe Judkins took a picture of himself holding all of the volumes in his arms, as if declaring "See, I have this massive stack of books in my arms, I'm a huge fan of The Wheel of Time!", when in all probability, he did a similar thing and just read a synopsis that he had one of his assistants crank out. Can I prove it? No. But I think the results speak for themselves. Big fans of IPs usually produce works that, be they clumsy or articulate, get across that love of the material that is being adapted. I detect no such love in "The Wheel of Time" and may even sense a certain....disdain, I suppose, for the old-fashioned world-view of James Rigney Jr. aka Robert Jordan. But, that's showbiz. It wouldn't be the first time something like this happened, I just wish it hadn't happened to this particular series.
@@pavelowjohn9167 Exactly. I've stated before how Peter Jackson made a lot of changes to LotR, some of which worked, some I stringently disagreed with. However, not once did I ever leave the theatre thinking Jackson hated Middle Earth or was trying to subvert and 'repurpose' Tolkien's life work.
I DO get that feeling with WoT, like they are purposefully trying to rape and destroy it.
@@pavelowjohn9167 I watched an interview where Rafe said they took several quotes from the book and they told the story using those as a map. Some quotes from the book. Not the books, but a few quotes from them. Rafe never intended to give us Robert Jordan’s tale. He only wanted the brand recognition and was tied to following the most very basic plot from the books so that he could claim it was an adaptation. If you changed the names of the characters and locations and called channeling magic instead then they would have an original series of their own. They needed the brand so they could pull in an inherited audience knowing that it would completely piss off the existing fandom and create online controversy, feeding the marketing team and the blue check marks that love the show. It’s been done before and they will do it again with LOTR. Prime entertainment has a clear mission to ‘modernize’ audiences and their direction comes from Salke, the head of Prive Video. Rafe is a captain in the army, not a general…. This is all going to get a lot worse.
WoT Show Runner: We aged up the characters so that it didn't seem like a YA show.
Also WoT Show Runner: Let's create love triangle that didn't exist in the books and turn Aei Sedai "politics" into something on the level of Mean Girls.
Yeah, that confused me so much watching the show. I thought he wanted the characters to act more mature, but there was more teenage relationship drama than in the book.
Not to mention let's stick loads of gratuitos sex in there.
The thing that really irked me was the cold open to episode 8. I thought a lot of the skewing of the lore could have been explained away by ignorance of those in the present day. But showing Lews Therin directly drove home that it was wrong. The decision to try and seal the Bore was not made sitting around in a nursery casually debating its merits. This was an act of desperation from a leader who knew that they were losing the war against the shadow and that something had to be done.
I agree. The episode 8 cold opening confirmed to me that the world in the TV series was very different to the books, and what we'd heard previously wasn't from unreliable narration.
I now lean towards thinking of the TV series as a rewriting of the lore and not just an adaptation. :-/
I'm not sure there IS a war of the shadow? it almost seemed like LTT made the bore... for some reason
@@amys0482 when they drilled the bore the Aes Sedai didnt know their was such a being as the dark one. it was while sealing him and the 13 that Lewis Therin caused the male half of the one power to be corrupted, not in the period of freeing him
@@kitten9416 pretty sure she knows the book lore. Her comment is about how poorly whatever version of it the show is going with is explained.
Also, one other thing that I don't think Any leaned into hard enough was the disagreement between the Origin lore shorts and the show. Honestly, I question whether the show / Rafe agrees with that lore. Which is highly problematic. You can have the show contradict that lore.
@@kitten9416 Correct. I understand what happened in the books. The show MAY be trying to change this to make it LTT's fault, but it could also just be confusing writing. I don't know. 🤔
Adapting the entire 14 book series into 8 seasons with 8 episodes each is a titanic duty “heavy as a mountain” no argument. Adapting B1:EotW into an 8 episode season is not IMO. Before the season released I expected many changes because I assumed they’d have to squeeze 2 books into S1, and I remember when E6 title, Flame of Tar Valon, was first leaked thinking, “wow, they must get to EotW by then because the title suggests we are meeting Siuan in Fal Dara which was at beginning of B2. Not the case, S1 is largely B1 and they had 8 episodes. LotR:FotR’s, GoT:SoI&F & WoT:EotW are all comparable in page count, character count & world building scope. Jackson nailed FotR’s in 3.5 hours, D&D nailed SoI&F in 8, no excuse for Rafe stumbling out of the gates. The only difference in these 3 productions is “FAITH” to the source material. Jackson & D&D stayed faithful, Rafe went rogue, and story suffered in general and definitely as an adaptation.
32:50 and they removed all the stakes that were part of being the Dragon Reborn. In the books it was hyped up as being essentially the Anti-Christ. Something that was a necessary part of getting through the end of days, but definitely not something anyone would want to be. Their reactions at hearing one of them may be the Dragon tells it all, they barely react at all.
I vaguely remember when I first read the Eye of the World as a teenager I thought that the last line from Moraine about the Dragon Reborn meant she was a darkfriend.
Rand pretty much compares him to the Dark One in the first book. In the show he is just the stronger channeler who ever lived. And none of the EF5 think about the implication of one of the boys being him, i've seen many non readers thinking the DR isn't going to be affected by the corruption.
45:30 two scenes from the show prove to me that the writers aren't hobbled by needing to fit too much per episode.
The first is the scene where Moiraine talks about the fall of Manetheren. In the books it was a multipurpose scene. It happened during an attempted lynching of Moiraine, showing that Aes Sedai are next to Darkfriends in the eyes of many people, it establishes that Moiraine is clever at diffusing antagonistic situations, and it establishes that Emond's Field is a backwater where truth is what stories they've heard and very little personal experience. Instead it is purely a telling of the story of Manetheren. It accomplishes nothing apart from dumping lore on the audience and boosting the showrunner's ego because he "kept people entertained" with a 5 minute scene of nothing but 5 people riding horses.
The second is the Breakbone Fever scene. Another multilayered scene. First as a blatant establishment that Nynaeve could channel as it was the story of her first experience doing so, second as a means of telling the audience the symptoms of channeling so we'd be able to see them when Rand does so, and third as establishing in the world that a Wisdom would need to understand that she couldn't heal everyone (in the mind of Nynaeve's teacher) that would have backfired for Nynaeve that would increase her likelihood to believe with the Power she could heal everyone. In the show it's nothing but a "girl power" moment for Egwene.
Both are lifted out of their contexts and uses to the story to serve whatever function the showrunners want to say.
This is true
I'd have to go find it, but RJ himself said he thought a story where, "The hero of the story is tapped on the shoulder and told he is the savior of the world but will go crazy in the process" was an interesting concept. He liked the idea, and it makes for a great story obviously.
The writers seemed to have missed that. That core element is central to the story. It's the heart of everything, and yet we get almost nothing of the prophecies. Virtually nothing on Saidin and it's issues. Ta'veren are mentioned but not explained much. They've even added a few, which is alright I guess, but it creates more plot armor and RNG.
What's worse is that in one of the episodes they confuse the prophecies by questioning whether they're even true or not. Which may be a legitimate problem for the people in this world, but to your point it just adds more and more mistrust for the viewer. They are being told they cant trust almost anything they see or hear. It feels cheap and contrived, when there are constant GOTCHA moments. Especially if they don't land well.
The problem is that if they deviate too much here in the beginning, by the end of the show we'll be WAY off. The one power has become plot armor in a lot of ways which irritates me. We as viewers need help understanding how complicated things are in this world. Which the show has done almost no work to accomplish. They have precious time to tell the story. They need to make better decisions on what they show. The plot holes are already starting to appear.
Also, an episode and a half of Thom is a crime. #BringBackThom
That interview with RJ is tacked onto the end of the audiobooks. He specifically says he was trying to write a story where being the Chosen One is just the worst. He also specifically wrote about how people who grew up in the country would respond to being told what to do. The show doesn't capture this, but it seems to be deliberately telling a different story. The problem is I am one season in and I don't know what the story is :/
Beautifully put: "Books 3-6 are fun, because the characters win DESPITE the politics."
I remember impossibility of raising the dead being a big thing in the book. And they just did it like that in the show for nothing else than shock value. The whole thing falls apart with random changes to the story.
The hole magic system is warped in this 'adaptation' they took the liberty to rewrite the rules... they can all channel like nothing with no training whatsoever, the girls can link and, heal multiple people and bring people back to life...
I'm not giving them any passes from the suposed impact covid 19 had on the production. If anything it makes me even more mad that they think it's okay to delivering a subpar product now and it will be excused. No, if the foundation is bad then it's hard to come back from that. They should have delayed the show and made sure that the big scenes could be done instead of doing what they did now.
Appreciate your reviews I just want to push back a bit on something that seems to be becoming accepted dogma. "They need more episodes it is impossible to get 14 books into 7-8 seasons with 8 episodes each"
This is nonsense. First there is no guarantee this will ever be finished. Starting season one with the expectation of finishing the series is nothing more than hubris if that is what is driving their decisions. They were given one season initially and then green lighted for 2 and now 3?
If this show flops there will not be a 4th or 8th season for that matter.
The objective from the beginning should be to deliver a good show nothing more. If it is good and continues to be good more seasons will come. The idea they are required to fit x amount of books into one season is just bad thinking. They need to make each season work regardless of how many books it covers because if it is bad, we will never reach the end regardless of how many episodes they are given.
In this case they seem to have gone the route you are describing thinking they have to shoehorn x number of books into each season, and it left us with a rushed mess. There is no rule that the series needs to be finished the only rule is it needs to be popular enough to continue making more.
There is no rule they even have to finish the first book if doing so makes the show suffer for it.
If you make one of the most popular shows on the planet you get as many seasons as you want.
I keep hearing this repeated and it bugs me. Thanks for the review I did enjoy it my quibble aside.
Completely agree. My point was that trying to fit in all the books would lead to something bad so they SHOULD retell the story differently. But each season still needs to deliver a good story and especially the first season. I don't think they achieved that. I don't even know what they were trying to do.
There's a logical reason for attempting to mirror a book series structure. Each book theoretically ends on a closure, tying up opened conflicts and setting up future ones, so it should be a good milestone for a season (or multi-movie series) to aim for as well.
@@bidossessi It should be, but in this case it forced their pacing and instead created something that feels rushed and with little to no depth. If that is the reasoning they are going with, then this seems destined to fail.
I don't think they have shown a real dedication to anything more than the bare surface of the books so they should feel free enough to come up with a season end.
You have to be realistic as a show runner though. You can't think "If this is good maybe I'll get 20 seasons to tell the entire story." You know that you are working on a very finite budget of both dollars and time. If they somehow get through six seasons and they have condensed so much material that they are running out of original content from the books and yet the show is still hugely popular they could easily reintroduce content that they previously chose to skip.
There's also a real problem with how they treat prophecy in the show: the reason given for Moirraine's hesitancy about the Karatheon Cycle is that the prophecy has been translated a million times by a bunch of people so who knows what's true. However, this sort of `low materialist' explanation for the failure of prophecy is not how it works in the books: As far as I can remember, basically every prophecy that was ever actually stated in the books ends up coming true: however, outside of a very specific prophecy concerning Tear they all tend to come true in a way that was unexpected. Like Prophecy is real in this world and is given great respect, that's why Morraine left on her journey in the first place.
The bigger problem with this for me is that she has been studying this for 20 years. There are ways of determining the legitimacy of sources, even really old ones. Casting doubt on the prophesy now means that she may have been wasting her time for 20 years, despite being present for a foretelling... It's just needlessly confusing.
Great analysis of the series. I agree that Rand should have had equal focus as Egwene and Nyneve. I would be ok with them helping with the battle but have Rand use the one power to finish off the Trollocs to show he’s the Dragon Reborn.
yep. Not having the whole cast go to the Eye was fine and having them do something is great. What they actually did, though...?
Mind you they named Lews Therin a Dragon Reborn in episode 8 as well...
@@MedicalExamUK good point I wish they just called him the Dragon.
So glad that I came across this video! I’m a book reader (haven’t finished the series yet) and I watched with my girlfriend who’s new to WOT, you totally hit the nail on the head with them establishing too much too early! If they had spent more time establishing what was more relevant to EOTW it would have felt so much more accessible to new fans, as the first book/season should be. Loved this breakdown, definitely excited to see more vids from you!
Best Reviewer on TH-cam by far!! Thank you!
Such intelligent spot-on commentary. Finding this channel was a great Christmas gift.
Unfortunately most of the complaints seem to come down to decisions made because of the political climate. The odd thing is that most of it wasn't necessary. They decided that the primary focus of season one was to emphasize the "female power" aspects, which is great because this WAS a theme of the books, but unfortunately they did it at the expense of the three boys, leaving them underdeveloped and underutilized. It also led them to making decisions like going to Tar Valon in order to flesh out the Aes Sedai (which could have waited until Egwene and Nynaeve went to the White tower next season) instead of going to Caemlyn where they could have retained a more intimate focus on the characters and concepts relevant to the first book. It also led to decisions like having Nynaeve have to tell Lan how to track moraine, not focusing on explaining the Dragon/Dragon Reborn, stripping Rand of his big moment at the eye of the world, focusing on the breaking being caused by "male hubris" instead of just doing the prologue, and many other small/smaller decisions. And all of that despite the fact that the Wheel of Time already had a heavy focus on female power. Literally all they had to do was update some of the woman to do female power better than RJ did, because I recognize that he tended to make powerful women unpleasant to show their power. Fix that and you already have a very modern story without sacrificing 3 of the five main characters to mediocrity.
And they also failed at fixing that. Their prime example of "female power" in the show is Suian Sanche shouting "This is MY tower, MY city, MY WORLD!" like a supervillain. Plus the fourth oath thing, which is so tyrannical that even Elaida's closest supporters in the books were horrified by the very idea. She went from hard but usually fair to crazy tyrant. They also changed her from a great political schemer to a totally incompetent politician who can't even keep a woman on trial from deflecting so completely that her own closest ally ends up on trial instead, and for much lesser "crimes". I'm afraid to think what Elaida (or Liandrin, if they really are combining them) will have to do to make Suian look like a good and just ruler by comparison. Full-on Compulsion on all dissenters maybe? At least the whole box incident and her bungled attempt to destroy the Asha'man will make Suian look like a political genius.
Another point of "Caemlyn would have been better" is that Morgase being queen, her youngest child being heir because only women can inherit, and and her top advisor being Elaida gives a great example of broader female leadership in the world, even without the One Power. And Morgase being merciful to this random peasant boy who has broken into the palace grounds and started chatting up her daughter would have made women in power look a lot better than power-mad Suian's petty cruelty. We could have had a bit of Aes Sedai politics there as well by having the Logain party and Moiraine interact with Elaida and the queen.
Most reasonable people totally agree with you about what a "Faithful Adaptation" is. Elias being gone makes perfect sense to me. Showing Thom later makes sense, showing Min later makes sense. Removing Baerlon and Camelyn BOTH doesn't make any sense and you know this. Removing every great thing that any man does in the books doesn't makes sense, unless you understand the showrunner's personal politics...
I don't know why I have to keep telling people this, but this show is NOT a faithful adaptation, it's not even an adaptation. It's a re-imagining that borrows heavly from the original. I would have been happier if they went with a completely new turning of the wheel and gave all the characters new names. RJ said that the champion of the light isn't always Rand or his soul itself, and that it could be a woman in another turning. Tell us that story but don't sell us on the idea that you're going to adapt the story when you're not.
This is fantastic. Echoes my thoughts.
I think the team is full of hubris and thought they could tell a better story.
At the very least, in their minds, they're "correcting" the books, which in their point of view, were problematic. (Mostly, the real spine of the books and the One Power, the binary sex Dynamics)
9:10 a bigger issue is the precedent it sets, where all races built up in the books are ignored to fill a diversity quota for the show. One among many issues that tie back to a lack of respect for the world built by the books as races from the books are traded for the racial needs of the showrunners. A fundamental shift in the viewpoint of the showrunners from accurately depicting the world of Wheel of Time and into fixing a problematic source. If they had made Mat the same color as the rest of them, that would have been better. But they didn't. It shows they agree with the "racists" that think the Emond's Fielders should be white but they're changing their color anyway.
They did it with costumes too, ignoring a very detailed sense of fashion built into culture that was painfully detailed in the books is ignored for whatever the "artists" running the show feel like including. They have a lot of different cuts and styles of clothes and hair, but they're not tied to places in the books. Liandrin is a good example, as it could be argued that her hair is Taraboner but her dress, and use of pants, definitely isn't. She's actually the closest I could think of to a distinctive style that was true to the books, and the entirety of that was her hair being similar but still different.
I've enjoyed your reviews all season long. I'm constantly impressed by how you're able just come on here talk, with structure and purpose. But I love how you share some of your bloopers 🥂
you said "the writers dont understand the central conflicts of the story" this is so so so true. i actually started getting concerned over a year ago when the first material put out by amazon stated that the dragon will save the world or destroy it. that is so wrong, its suppose to be save the world and destroy it. that small change changes the entire dynamic of rands arc into something less compelling and less interesting.
Your take on the shows writing is spot on. Dont know what they were thinking with a lot of their choices. They had a real opportunity at the end of the season to satisfy the book readers with a refreshing change (most readers that ive spoken to think EotW ending is clunky) and they completely fluffed it.
I actually think the book ending for the EotW is okay in concept. It is confusing to read but I think it could have been visually told pretty well. I would have foreshadowed "a reservoir of clean Saidin for the DR to fight the DO" early on in the story and maybe changed how and when they know it is in jeopardy, but the concept could have worked.
@@amys0482 I want to underline this point. Confusing to read, but a closer adaptation of the ending could have cleared it up, and been way more visually stunning than a pan-around shot of Rand doing... nothing, really. The book lore of the Eye -- the sacrifice of men and women together, to preserve the Horn and banner and a little bit of clean Saidin -- is so much more impressive than the show's quick explanation of sa'angreal. But showing that would have required the writers to have first explained the difference between Saidar and Saidin.
Ugh. Did they adapt the Eye, in part, because they refuse to acknowledge the split in the One Power? Rewatching the scene, it appears Rand's hand is empty as soon as the Seal breaks, so did the writers destroy the sa'angreal as well, to save themselves a problem? Ugh.
And I understand the writers wanting to split the party to give the girls and Perrin something to do, but then they gave that something to Amalisa, and everyone else, Lan and Perrin included, were just hanging around for exposition and a little bit of fan service. Ugh.
I'm sitting here listening to your review and everything you are saying about the challenges for the show are right but seemed like this was a prime series to be an animated series. Alot of these challenges could have been solved in animated series. I don't particularly like animated series. But after watching Arcane I've changed my mind on that a bit.
Have you watched the animated WoT shorts? Fantastic stuff. Wish they were the whole show.
I wonder how much better I would react to WoT if I didn’t just watch Arcane before it.
@@MohseenLala yes. And it's the only thing I like about the series at all. If they had taken as much care in the show as they did in the shorts with the lore the show wouldn't have been as bad. It almost makes me think it was 2 different show runners
@@SonOfSeth Arcane is the best thing I've seen on tv in the last 10 years. And I'm not exaggerating. But shows should be held to a standard. And if a video game company can make a high tier fantasy show then there's no excuse for Amazon with an 80 million dollar budget to do the same.
@@Dovieandi_Se_Tovya_Sagain I agree, I just think I could have been indiferent to it like just another failed and misguided adaptation. But when there is Arcane and it shows how well it can be done, WoT comes off even worse in comparisson, almost insulting to it's viewers intellingence and artistic sensibilites.
Your take on the series was knowledgeable, honest and to the point. I truly wish the show producers and writers watch your video, it would help them. ( I have read all the books and I am a huge fan of TWOT)
For me the idea of taking Rand's moments of learning how to channel and channeling and limiting it to a 2 min clip was a that was exposed in Episodes 7 was a disappointment and a missed opportunity to develop the Dragon Reborn, the tant, etc.... The reasoning behind the lack of screen time was to push the mystery of who the Dragon Reborn was...out of the 5 characters from Edmonds Field (EF) including the women. That idea for whatever reason was horrible! I would like to understand why the writers did it? Was it to strengthen the female character because female characters are so weak in the books so they thought they needed to equalize the balance of power?...no! because the wheel of time female characters are crazy strong, capable, and for the most part in power positions especially with the one power! The Dragon Reborn mission is to cleanse the male side of the source, restoring balance and defeat the Dark One. The concept in not hard to understand, but apparently for the brain trust of this show it is! It seems to me that the writers and producers want to fully degrade the taveern roles of Matt, Perrin and especially Rand have and share it with other female characters. Will they drop that whole concept that Rand needs Matt and Perrin to achieve wins? I could not believe that they messed up Rand's hero moment at the end of the book. It could of been so simple and would of made most of us happy. He finds the horn, teleports to the battle and kicks ass with the the male side of the force uncontrollably...in which they could of introduced the voices in his head, it would of been an epic 😎 finish and what we expected. This is why so many fans are so disappointed with the series. I can except some changes and will rolled with some disappointment, but not at this level of disrespect for Jordan's world.
One of the main reasons I love these books was the balance of power was in favor of the women and the men were prosecuted, hunted and gentled. Jordan's world is not perfect but I give him full credit for creating extremely important, interesting and strong female roles. The brain trust should not mess around with the main structure of the story. They have the content and yes the job is not easy on what to cut, but they are so better off the GOT last 2 seasons that didn't have anything to work with, and that resulted in bad writing, I can forgive them. But The Wheel Of Time is a completed story all they need to do is edit and not mess up the main storyline. What is next will they take some accomplishments from the female characters and give them to male characters to balance out screen time? I say don't mess with the main plots of one of the best selling fantasy series. (It is a best seller for a reason)
Next I would like to talk about the casting. I do understand both sides of the discussion that you brought up and I do like the idea of blending in different races. I have no problem with it and believe that the cast is wonderful.
Once again thank you for your show I look forward to part 2!
So glad to finally find someone who isn't hating on the show because they think it's "woke", but rather because it actually has a bad and confusing storyline. Your review is fantastic and completely echoes what I think!
I actually think that "wokeness" is potentially an issue, but I wouldn't frame it that way. More like Rafe is trying to be inclusive but the cost was maybe higher than intended.... Will attempt to cover in my next video.
@@amys0482 most people that dislike the show agree with this.
I'd just like to touch on Loial. His screen presence was absolutely amazing to me. He doesn't look like I imagined him. His face and ears are not as animated. But man does he feel like Loial. If anything the show has left me wanting more of him. His ability to just spew exposition into certain scenes naturally and with comedic timing was great. I watched so many reaction videos of none readers instantly fall in love with him. Thanks for another great video Amy I enjoy the community and your views around the show more then I do the actual show. Are you going to react to the animated shorts? I'm highly interested in your opinions on those. In my opinion these felt more like The Weel of Time then the show did. I had hoped for the level of the show to be in par with LOTR. Maybe this was setting the bar to high.
I wish he looked better, and I wish they gave him more screen time, because I agree that Hammed Animashaun did a wonderful job with his performance. He is such a lovable character.
@@nineradvocate Personally if the character feels right I can adjust to certain changes more easily. I also would have loved for him to get more screen time. He kind of disappeared in Fal Dara for a bit.
Omg, this was spot on.
Subbed. I really like hearing your thoughts.
I will say, and I don't know if this falls under Actor or Writing, but Rand and Egwene having tears in their eyes when they talk to each other every other scene got a little old.
IMHO... that's the writing.
17:26 I know why the show didn't give Elyas's mentor role to Lan. It's also the same reason that Lan's important mentor role to Rand and Mat from the books was dropped. And why Tam didn't teach Rand about the Flame and the Void like he should have. And why Thom didn't train Rand and Mat in the art of juggling and music. And so on, and so on. It's because the show - and the entertainment industry in general - absolutely *hates* *Fathers* and anyone who is a surrogate father to children. All portrayals of Dads are as useless, absent, abusive, or incompetent parents. The Wheel of Time is only slightly more egregious than most content nowadays in this war on Fathers. But it's an undeniable and established pattern of disdain for Dads.
Oh, interesting. I didn't get this from the show. I actually think they've gone out of their way to show many positive examples of fathers. Lan's family, LTT with a baby, Rand holding a couple of different babies, the Grinwell family that is killed, Siuan's father. I mean... I think some of the writing is clunky, but I wouldn't say fathers are being undermined or under represented. We did not get Lan's mentorship of the E5, though. I'll cover that in my next video.
@@amys0482 What you're describing is men having emotions for their kids, but what I am talking about is that there are no examples of fathers *mattering* to their kids. There's an important difference. For example, Siuan's Dad seems nice on the surface, until you realize that he needs _her_ help, and she doesn't need him for anything (she's so strong and independent that she needs no man, and leaves him behind, homeless and an outcast from his community). And he also just abandons her by not traveling with her to keep her safe or help guide her, which no loving father would ever allow to happen. LTT appears to love his child, yes, but he then goes off and destroys the world in his arrogance and abandons that child to suffer in a post-apocalyptic nightmare. That's an awful portrayal of fatherhood.
My question is: Where are the scenes of Fathers *mattering* in their kids lives, and helping to foster their growth and development? Teaching, mentoring, protecting, or just being important to their children? Mat's father is abusive. Perrin's dad no longer even exists. Rand leaves Tam without more than five seconds of...I don't know whether his expression was sadness, or indigestion. We see Siuan spending more time taking care of her Dad than we see Rand interacting with Tam.
Unfortunately, when you're not a man, or a father, these constant insults to fathers are just overlooked. The hatred has become normalized because it's so common, so I'm not surprised you cannot see it, even when it's pointed out and such a strong pattern exists in just a single show. Honestly, it's disgusting how the entertainment industry as a whole today just hates fathers, male role models, or any kind of portrayal that suggests men could be important in kid's lives.
@@RoryMitchell00 Perrin's mentor* Although Perrin looked at Haral Luhhan as a father figure, he wasn't Perrin's father.
Though Witcher season 2 has finally bucked this trend with Geralt, vessimir and the other witchers being fatherly to ciri. With a touch of motherly berating from Triss, as fathers can be too hard on kids.
@@RoryMitchell00 I'd double down on that, adding there is no positive representation of men in the show whatsoever.
Men are either plain incompetent (Lan, Tam, Perrin, LTT, Siuan's Dad), bigots (Agelmar), clueless simps (Rand), useless (Loial) darkfriends (Matt) or straight up villains (Padan et al).
Even the Warder Stepin, the traumatized warder decides to just kill himself instead of e.g. going to fight Shadowspawn and lose his miserable life for a just cause.
Holy shit. This is an awesome review! Glad to discover your channel and about to binge all your previous content. This video is so spot on. Between your channel and Books and Bianca, I'm loving the deep analysis of the technical filmmaking aspects of the show.
My biggest gripe has been the writing all the way through. They do a bad job of creating narrative setups and payoffs within and between episodes.
Hi Amy, Happy New Year 😀
I really enjoy your channel and your in depth analysis of the episodes. I also have a lot of respect for you that you changed your opinion in the Season review.
I watch this with my Wife, non-reader of the WoT, and have great difficulty saying “that wasn’t in the book” or “Rand did this…”. She has really enjoyed the season though she did think the writing was a bit weak. We spent a lot of time discussing Ep 8 and the battle at Tarwins Gap. Not giving Rand the key moment of defeating the trolloc army was unforgivable in my opinion. As far as the season is concerned “who is the Dragon and why do we care?” For the readers of the series we know that all the Edmond’s Field characters are strong in their own way and are integral to the story.
With luck Season 2’s writing will be better and they will devote more time to the overall story arc.
Thanks for your channel and please keep going.
I understand things needs cut, the books are huge and long.. was accepting of that premise.. until we got a tangent episodes dedicated to Logain (whom I adore in the books), and Sad Warder episode. But then get told endlessly, there wasnt enough episodes/ they have to trim something... then reminders of those two episodes, again...
love this review! the note about worldbuilding and how it needs to connect to plot to translate is so good and such a damning read of this show specifically (though I do think this is a major weakness of the source material too. the books pretty much just grind to a halt every time something needs to be explained or re-explained by internal monologue)
feels like this also probably plays into other things like character depth, thematic development, etc. maybe the reason the books sometimes feel bloated and the show feels rushed is the same, ie the wheel of time’s plot doesn’t always effectively serve all of these purposes at the same time. but because the world is so intricate when the show tried to condense and solve some of those plot/story issues they ended up breaking a bunch of other things in the process (rules of the magic system, character nuance, sometimes basic logic, etc)
Once again great analysis. The last few years have produced a tWoT cottage industry that Amazon has wormed its way into. Im not saying Amazon pays anyone but they have garnered influence through access. The biggest names in this industry now all lean into the showrunner's use of "feels before reals" and fail to apply strong methods of critique.
Thankfully a new light has sprung up in the darkness. You use very fair and well balanced points to explain your views. Maybe I'm showing bias as your opinions are similar to mine but I do find your videos refreshing to watch.
I like to see you move into critiquing other works, particularly book as I dont watch many shows. Id also be interested in videos on yourself to show how youve developed you analysis skills. After that its channel cross-overs, examples may include Phillip Chase, A Critical Dragon and Mike's Book Reviews
They don’t have to pay them. It’s like F1, a lot won’t criticise FIA as they will pull their press passes.
In order to avoid copyright strikes/claims you have to minimize the amount of time you show certain shots or scenes. Never use more than 2-3 seconds of consecutive material. Try using clever ways of obstructing the view on the material you use (e.g. by flipping it vertically and/or covering certain parts of it partially with watermarks or graphics "leaning" into the frame of the image). This way you "destroy"/"distord" the source material enough so it won't get picked up by TH-cam's automatic upload filter algorithms. Also: Avoid using chunks of material that have original soundtrack - music almost always triggers the upload filter system.
the soundtrack may have been my biggest problem before
Sharing this video with as many people as I can.
You are absolutely right about the Mary Sue women and stolen moments for the men. It hurts all of these characters. I've written a lot about this, but you stated it very eloquently here.
I really wish that I could give this more than 1 "Like". It's great to see such a criticism of the disaster that is season 1 without the hate that some folks are throwing out there. Looking forward to the next video. Keep it up!
It is criticism of the show that has made me buy the 1st book.
I actually bought it as a kid when it was first published! but didn’t get into it and so didn’t get past the 1st few chapters, it sat on my self unread for years before getting rid of it.
Just Re-bought it on a kindle now as a adult and I am half way through it, nice Xmas read.
So… in one way criticism has had a positive effect.
I would really like to see you do an character breakdown from book to series.
For examples:
Lan while more stoic in the books, his character traits of duty and honor were very well realized in the character during specific moments (getting help for Morraine's trolloc wound, designated mourners for Steppen)
Nyneave in the books has a strong personality. Practical, independent, compassionate, but her pride borders on hubris and creates character conflict.
Perrin in the books is quiet, but his protection instincts are a huge character trait. In the show they are depicting him having internal conflict on the line between protection versus violence.
Glad I found your channel, I'm one of this people that have read these books many times, but I forced myself to try to give it a chance...I totally agree, the writing is awful. They forget their own canon, they can't do set up and payoff. They rely on weak tropes.
I'm still confused why they added 2 episodes to go over the warder bond then, decide not to use that set up. I'd be OK if they killed moraine.. or stilled her (She's not stilled a certain person good with knots will help in s2) either way would give that arc set up with Lan now losing the bond.
The removal of import roles from male characters is the meta of the age we live in, but it could have been done better, and within the existing canon of the show, like have the men's council in Edmonds field discuss something, then the next scene the women's council discussing the same thing but in the "we really run this town, go and browbeat your husbands till they see sense"... ok that example might be hard to fit into an 8 episode story, but it would have set a better theme that women run the world in the current WOT time line.
It's so frustrating they had a good story they could have hit the high points of book 1. Trimmed the fat. Created greatness. But I guess you need to be great to create greatness, or humble up adapt things greater than you could ever create
I'm not convinced they have read all of the books. They keep stepping on future plot lines. I just read some of the amazon reviews. I swear one of the guys might be a shill out on just to defend the show. I like your reviews. I might keep watching the series just to get your take on it. Keep up the good work, I am now a subscriber.
You put your thoughts out so well! I really like how eloquent you are when critiquing the good and bad aspects of the show
as for cuts to the books yeah i can see the need but then when they do things like episodes 5&6 inventing brand new characters, with scenes that never took place or are even needed and actually detract from character development, the argument of ' we don't have the time to do more from the books' sorta looks like a cop out argument, sure at episode 4 it was a reasonable argument then the rest of the season happened :|, As for Elyais being a remarkable coincidence to run into the only sane wolf brother, there is a perfectly logical argument to that, and that is he's a Ta'veren he pulls the pattern he bends it so that he has access to what is needed when he needs it. The 3 boys are walking talking mcguffins the pattern will do as much as possible to meet their needs to make things happen around them. But agreed he isn't an essential character but he does give context.
I liked your analysis very much. Will watch part two simply to see your thoughts on the consistently inconsistencies in this shows inherent logic system. Also realizing my prior sentence will land me my dream job of writing season two for As the Wheel Turns which I risk by pointing out that Moiraine cannot be stilled if she can’t lie.
I would like to come over anything u didn’t talk about I couldn’t, I divided this review perfectly n multiple times u let us know that the 2nd pat will discuss those moments. Great job, can’t wait to see Part 2. May u have happy holidays.
I love that cat. He is so chonky and cute.
You have one of the best and most insightful critiques I have seen in the WoT-verse. I really appreciate your focus on storytelling. This is the kind of in-depth dissection (both good and bad) that I wanted to see from reviewers - and has been sorely lacking in my opinion. At this point I'm as tired of the apologists as the angry book purists. I agree with you, you can change all manner of things in an adaptation but it all still needs to make some sense and maintain an internal logic. While I have heard non-book readers mostly enjoyed this season, my impression is that the enjoyment was a very generic one and the attraction superficial, something easily forgotten when the next show comes along. I believe if you surveyed non-readers a few months from now many will not remember most of the plot in this season. I suspect the reason they have remained cagey about the duality of the one power is due to them trying to keep the identity of the Dragon Reborn a secret for as long as possible. I did not like this idea and didn't think it made the story more interesting. The explanation that "this is TV" and "we need drama and mystery" is unsatisfactory. Poor writing is poor writing. This construct allowed the show runners and writers to transfer plot points from the boys to the girls in some misguided attempt at "empowering" those characters. The girls had interesting enough character and plot developments that they don't need to take on the boys' plot points. I don't understand why they could not maintain the "mystery" element by focusing on just the 3 boys for the Dragon storyline. In any case, if they don't adequately explain Saidin and Saidar within the show (not extra shorts) by next season, some of the major plot lines in the later books will make no sense. Don't even get me started on what is being implied as the DO seals. If they are all that big and location dependent (ie set in a physical place) I have no idea how they are going to serve their role in the final battle.
The seals weren't even named as seals so.... miffed.
The writing is just not logically consistent enough to garner a rapt audience. The visuals make up for some of that, which makes the show "passable" around the low 60s for me. It's watchable. But it's not good. I'll eventually get over it.
@@amys0482 Absolutely! I don’t recall if Leanne even used “keeper of the seals” when she announced the Amyrlin in ep 6. As you’ve said, this was a missed opportunity. They could have made this really great instead of just passable. I’ve also cut them some slack over issues around the pandemic restrictions and Barney’s sudden departure but those things only exacerbated the writing issues that were already present throughout the season. Those events in and of themselves did not cause the problems in the writing, only highlighted them in my opinion.
Thanks for taking the time to review the show. Look forward to part 2
Thank you, Amy! Loving your balanced and accurate representation of what there was to appreciate, what to give a little leeway & understanding for, and what was just poorly produced or bad choices made, etc.
I really hope that the show runners are paying attention to these videos by you and by Nerdy Nightly and others... especially Brandon freaking Sanderson.
Well done Amy - your analysis of the strengths and the weaknesses of the show are well explained. Watching you try to wrangle your cat while hearing all of this is a definite bonus :)
He actually interrupted my filming three or four times. I edited out most of them. He was climbing into paper bags full of Christmas wrappings and making a ruckus because he wanted attention.
I need a master class on how to be as articulate and verbally expressive as you are in the analysis of the WOT series. I tried really hard to like it and failed. Well done and please keep this up, it has inspired me.
@Amy Stewart Actually most Eamond Fielders are described as brown hair and brown eyed, now whilst you can argue that they are darker hair colours, when the Author actually uses the term Dark haired as a look, it means that its more of a, dark, medium and light hair colours, ergo Eamond Fields is a medium hair colour region. Since ,except in very rare genetic mutations, white people are the only ones with a variance on hair colours and people of colour only have dark hair that the EF's should for the most part be a homogenious white nation. So yes people who say they should be white are correct, especially when other events come up in the book such as when Egwene is saying that Nynaeve will have an easy time in Ebou Dar due to her tanned skin and dark hair when the girls are planning on sneaking in and there are other occasions where that is noted on as well. So saying this i do think the actors have done a somewhat decent job with the roles they were given but the writing could be effecting my judgement there as the writing is terribad.
Spot on review Amy!
I did enjoy the TV show (maybe more because I love everything WoT). And have read the Books multiple times. Watching the reactions from non-reader was so much fun! So will buy the Amazon Prime Video pass for every season just because of that. But I'm also hoping for a Anime adaptation some day that can be more true to the Source material.
The best part of season 1 was finding this channel... I wholeheartedly agree with all the points and comments you`ve made.
A BIG thank you for what you said in the end of this video. You are the first female I`ve heard pointing this out - how the show deliberately tone down the significance of men and giving it all to the females (imo not only a problem for the Emond`s field 3).
Keep up the good work with the channel! :)
I have more to say on this point. I don't like what they have done here.
I'll be honest..I now appreciate just how good game of thrones season one really was.it absolutely decimates wot season one on every single level.theres no excuses,we've seen it done.ten years ago..this isn't exactly progress is it.
Heya Amy. Your analysis of the season is spot on. A huge disappointment for people that have actually read the books and a 'meh' season for people that haven't due to lack of explanations on the world building. I've been watching other WoT review channels, and without naming names, it seems some people are really in denial about how bad things have been so far. If Amazon really do want max 8 episodes per season like you said, then this is gonna be sad. At this point, WoT would be better served to be adapted into an animated series like Arcane.
Riot has the advantage of a whole creative team that has lived and breathed those characters for decades. Arcane is amazing and raises the bar. I dont think we'll get another shot at WOT as a live action show, but animated.... maybe?
@@amys0482 Maybe. *shrug* The graphic novels were adapted pretty well (just imo), so animating them with a creative and experienced team would allow the story to be told without having to worry about filming locations or budget for extras and so on. But yes, you are right that Riot's writing team for Arcane really did raise the bar for what's possible. Thank you for replying. This was the first of your vids that I watched and now I'm starting at your first one so I can experience your downwards spiral of disappointment and frustration haha. :D
@@SethQuado
**spoilers**
I truly loved episode 4. Episode 5 I liked as a kind of vignette stand alone. I thought it was emotionally moving. But it was a waste of time given how much there is to cover with the main cast. Episode 6 I hated and two episodes in a row with no development of the main characters was unforgiveable.
@@amys0482
*continued spoilers*
I enjoyed 4 and 7 mostly, with 8 being obviously the worst. The problem with 5 is that too much time was spent on the warder thing; It *could* of been fine had season 1 been like 10-12 episodes long. Just that amount of time could of been used to explain Saidin/Saidar a bit more somehow to one of the characters in Tar Valon for example. Also, the 5 untrained/semi-trained channelers at the end + being physically burned out.. it's vexes me. I am quite vexed. lol. Anyway, I could talk for hours about this but I'd be parroting what you've already said which is why I enjoy your content, you and Books and Bianca both have good intelligent reviews coming from knowledgeable and passionate backgrounds without falling into the easy to complain "this sucks because woke culture" argument of other people. I look fowards to your part 2!
Thank you for a refreshingly well formulated review! I agree with almost everything, but I think you are to forgiving with the Covid-problems and Barney Harris leaving. They could have solved this so much better. It's extremely annoying how much unneccesary lore-breaking they are doing for seemingly no (or silly) reasons.
I made a list of quite small changes (mostly just dialogue) that I think would have made the show stay much more true to the books and handling the Covid- and Barney-problems better, while still keeping the mysteries and themes they wanted to show. It wouldn't nearly fix everything, I just think it shows that most of the excuses beeing used for these problems are bad.
Episode 1:
- Cut the "if he was reborn as a boy or a girl" in the intro, and change "them" to "it" after "this child is coming of age, and I need to find it before the Dark does.
- Remove cold opening (at least the transition with ta'veren).
- Change Moiraines line to Nynaeve to "you're not from this village, are you?", indicating that she can be from one of the other Two Rivers villages, but still keeping the rest of their intention.
- Replace Perrins wife with his blacksmith master, Haral Luhhan: Same struggle with violence, but more believable he didn't completely break down afterwards.
- Change dialouge in the end: Have Moiraine tell them the Dark one wants one of the four of them for some purpose, in stead of saying one is the Dragon reborn. No lies, and it's reasonable for Moiraine not to tell them exactly why the Dark one wants one of the boys. The audience still believes any of them, including Egwene, can be the Dragon reborn.
Episode 4:
- Have Stepin go into warder rage immediately after Kerenes death, dying after beeing swarmed by dragonsworn. This shows better that he actually felt her death through the bond (in stead of needing to actually see her dead), and shows the horrible effect on the warder. The shards of his axes can be replaced by Logains cage, producing the same effect and ending of the episode.
- Kill one of Alannas warders, then have the next episode focusing on her grief.
Episode 6:
- Moiraine can mention that one of the Two rivers people are the Dragon without specifying a number or gender. For Siuan it's obvious it's one of the boys, but the audience doesn't know.
- Siuan can tell about just having heard about "Sightblinder means to blind the Eye of the World and slay the Great Serpent" from multiple sources, giving them the same reason to go there as in the books. Moiraine can say she believes the chances of success are best if all of the Two rivers people join, because some of them seem to be ta'veren and this can make the pattern swirl around them.
- Moiraine says she has contained the taint of the dagger temporarily, but Mat has to regain his strength for days before he can be fully healed.
- Remove the oath on the Oath rod, but replace it with a line, saying something formal like "You have sworn on the oath rod, and are physically bound to stay true to your oaths. Swear to me now, that you will respect my penance."
- Have the Waygate be in the Tar Valon grove. Moiraine follows her oath of leaving Tar Valon, even though no one knows how she went away.
- Mat can't come, because the taint of the dagger will make fades able to sense his presence (canon from the books).
- Have the Waygate be opened by an avendesora leaf.
Episode 7:
- Have Agelmar grateful for their arrival, then dissapointed they're not there to help. It gets forth the point of rulers thinking Aes Sedai only care about themselves, but doesn't explicite say they think so in the borderlands.
- One of Min's viewings can be that Moiraine can only bring one person to the Eye, if more comes they will all be killed. This set's up a reasonable motivation for her even to leave Lan behind.
- Rand have the same realisation, only not realising specifically that he is the Dragon Reborn, only that he is the one the Dark One wants.
Episode 8:
- Change the dialouge between Lews and Latra so that they at least mention that Latra has another plan that she believes in. Remove the comment about throwing the world back thousands of years and that the women will pick up the pieces, the mention of exposing the source and risk of corrupting tells this well enough. Have Lews' title be only Dragon. The impression will still be that the Dragon was arrogant and doomed the world knowingly, and this can be revealed later to be just a part of the truth (as I suppose they intend to do now).
- Keep the entire dialouge between Lan and Nynaeve from the books, to actually show why Lan won't marry. Have Nynaeve give him blessing to go after Moiraine instead of "the tell".
- Remove the wall in Tarwins gap.
- Have the defense of the wall be the walls of Fal Dara.
- Next step is the circle (on the wall) taking out the bulk of the trollocs, with Nynaeve really angry before the link.
- Nynaeve stabs Amalysa with her knife beacuse she starts letting the lightning down within the walls.
- Final charge from the shienarans against the remaining trollocs (no need to show fighting on screen).
- Moiraine tell's Rand she can't teach him (fish and bird).
- Moiraine explains that the Eye is a Ter'angreal that is a well of pure saidin, 100 men and women dying to make it. It can be used in great need without the wielder going mad, making Rand less hesitant to use it.
- After the pool is empty, they find the Dragon banner and a key to the chest with the Horn of Valere in the bottom.
- Rand still goes off because he believes he will go mad eventually, and the chest is still stolen by Fain from Fal Dara.
The one thing I do have to say in terms of 'politics' is that they are half right about the politics being an important constitutive aspect of the enjoyability of the story for books 4 - 6 (and also the last 3 books): you do need to have the field mice swarming the main characters for their defeat of the field mice to feel satisfying, otherwise its just bullying and unearned and in that respect you gotta have some stupidity happening at the level of political representation occuring before the main characters step in with action/movement of history/prophecy to upend all that nonsense. But that means that you needed to have, as part of your story arc idea (that this whole season needed to be about `who is the dragon, why does it actually suck to be the dragon, etc.) all of that prophecy in place to make the win more satisfying (after all, the prophecy gives things meaning and depth, the politics actually strips meaning out of stuff and the satisfaction comes about through the movement between promised prophetic meaning w/o actual embodiment -> stripped meaning in politics w/o embodiment -> actual `real' meaning delivered in action).
I can agree with that
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Dope! I've been looking forward to this. Thought you had some of the best takes on this series as it progressed.
Excellent review! Wish you and your channel all the best!
First off Amy, well done! Despite your lack of knowledge in putting together TH-cam content and being a novice at this, (which doesn't particularly show, with the exception of picking the wrong mic), you are succeeding in giving us intelligent, well thought out and entertaining content. Your review here was exceptionally well written, (I even like writing in Fritz's errant behavior as comic relief), and you have done a phenomenal job of articulating your thoughts and viewpoints. Something our subject matter has failed to do! Plus you've done this with "consistency" through your entire review series. Something else the show lacks. Keep up the great work and I think your channel will be very successful!
I think because I'm such a fan of the source material, and like you I wanted this series to be a huge success, I've overlooked _many_ of the things they've failed on. Your review is really striking home for me how poorly they've done at building this world, especially for non-book readers. In E04 when Nynaeve steps in and, out of desperation, has her moment, my breath seriously caught in my throat and I cheered and applauded and my heart felt warm because they gave us a moment that really showed how epic this show could be!
Rand's moment at the Eye of the World should've been this, and more! It should have been so awe inspiring that viewers sat back and said , "Holy Shit! Now _that_ has to be the Dragon Reborn!", and left them salivating for the next season! In fact, had they done so, even without the proper world building indicating the consequences of failure, I think that all of the other plot holes/inconsistencies and any of the shortcomings caused by outside difficulties beyond their control could have been forgiven. As it is, The Dragon Reborn and the Eye of the World are completely irrelevant. None of the non-book reader viewers have any idea that the pool at the Eye was pure Saidin, nor was it used up in defeating "The Dark One" and the Trollocs with lightning and _waves_ of earth rippling and wiping out the hoard, without any Sa'Angreal help. Such a shame! The audience should have been floored.
Your bookshelf has me googling for a leather bound copy of the Art of War.
Costco!
Sadly, 10 episodes would not fix this re-write, I am certain that bloat is replaced by contradictory bloat with no pay off.
I had fairly low expectations for this series. For me it was worth pursuing if it was 70% as good as the books. Until the last 3+ episodes it was kind of there, I was trying to stay positive.
Throughout the series it felt rushed, poorly edited and written, also possibly filmed on an i-phone under fluorescent light. The cast seemed strong as a whole and the scenery was nice, I thought it had potential in the first half.
At this stage I have little to no understanding of basic rules of this world, or have a connection to things I really should by now.
Is there a Saidin and Saidar? Does it take a man to fix Saidin or can we just get Egwene upset near it? In Ep8 prologue, where was the desperation at the seemingly imminent victory of the dark when the Dragon had his “arrogant” moment? It didn’t seem to me that the leader lady of that time realised that he was the avatar of light/ hand of the creator. Why is the Dragon special? Can death/ stilling just be healed by sadness now? Why not use the fancy camera from ep7 cold open to let Lan look cool by actually swinging his sword for once? What was the "tell" when Nynaeve had to teach Lan how to track?
The battle scene at the end could have easily been the most socially distanced responsible filming ever and still been well received. They just needed Rand to go nuclear. Instead, they nerfed him into freeing the dark one with a Mag-Lite so Egwene could be happy. That circle of wilders scene was a travesty in its entirety.
I am annoyed at how nit picky and negative I became when I should have been more prepared for the show we got from a corporate Grey Man.
I have enjoyed your breakdowns since I found you around ep 4, I will probably watch reviews rather than the show next year.
Well said !
Thank you for your balanced point of view. It feels like on one side we have the r/whitecloacks of this world. On the other we have what i view as just as bad, the shining white knights that will defend season 1 as great in an almost zombielike fervor.
The whitecloaks are balanced and objective. Their views match the reality of the show.
There are some of us fans that like the show but have serious grievances with it. Unfortunately social media seems to amplify the divide and force people into sides. IMO there are things to like about the show if you *want* to like the show, but it is unfortunate you have to put effort into liking the show. Regardless of how we feel about how the show compares to the books, we hoped for a show that was good enough to convey to people who haven't read the books just how amazing they are, and I think most book readers agree that the show has not done that as well as we hoped. Although all the discussion around the show seems to have done the job because I personally know non readers who have picked up the books as well as hearing people online say they're interested in checking them out now.
Nice work as usual Amy, thank you
P.S. It's easy to remember Sevanna cause I'm about 2/3rds of the way thru Book 7 on my latest re-read :)
but yea before this I would probably have had to look her up lol
Great review, just discovered this channel a few days ago, and loving it!
What an excellent video, thank you for this !
I understand the challenges, but they didn't have to add 75% of new content, books have plenty to work with...
indeed
C'mon people only 12 more subscribers to go!!! Let's make it happen this year. I loved your review and I'm frustrated with the end result of this season. I frankly just hate it and wouldn't mind if they cancel it, I think you've been awfully nice to them with your constructive criticism ;)
I enjoy your commentary and I think you've hit the nail squarely on the head. They need to stick to the source material because that is why this TV show is even happening. Millions of people love these books and that many people can't be wrong. Season 1 was a disaster. I don't know how they redeem Matt and Perrin or how or if Tom comes back into the show. Does the Band of the Red Hand exist in this show? Will the Two Rivers folk rally to Perrin after he murdered his wife? If they don't return to the original material they'll keep writing themselves into problems with no resolutions.
Great video, you really are improving!
15:20 that's a reason not to use that material, not an excuse for how poorly they did so.
29:40 but that's the opposite of what they did. They went more in depth on things much earlier than the books. Part of the reason WoT works so well is because you get introduced to the world a piece at a time, the early books focus on establishing the characters and the scale of the world without much detail, and you get more into the mechanics of the world later, and then onto the larger knock-on effects of their actions on the entirety of the world toward the end. There are a lot of details there for people re-reading the books, but they don't really get noticed on a first read.
The books are fine crafted swiss clockwork. It is complex, thought out and very finely put together. To make changes, one has to understand the complexities. And be cognized of the possibility, that making changes could create plot holes.
Wow what a fantastic and well articulated review, thank you!
Oh, don't mind me lol I'm just here to appreciate the greatness that is kitty :3 😺🐈
Rafe goes on and on about setting up the show for certain payouts. Several of them are known:
Nynaeve and her explosive healing.
Moiraine and Siuan kissing then getting married with a double-ended oath rod.
Shock of finding kneeling person is actually dead.
Lan going full Klingon and announcing/screaming to Stovokor that another warrior is on his way to them.
I agree with most of what you say.
Well said.
Hi Amy. I think you perfectly nailed it in the first part of your video. It is a huge effort to film this and you prolly never can do it right. I think you have been a bit hard towards the end. Sure, it's not perfect, but considering everything you said in the first part, you could be more forgiving. I don't think episodes 7+8 were planned like they showed up, as you said, was corona crap. Season 1 was worldbuilding mostly. You are right, not every decision was good and not every story developed well, but I'm confident that they know what they do and that Season 2+ will only get better. And if you will review again, I will watch it:)
I hope so!
Great analysis. Have really been enjoying your honest criticism.
Though, as critical as you were at times, I still think you are cutting them too much slack in places. ;)
RE: Saidin & Saidar, The Prophecies, etc.
----
In an interview with Gizmodo: `
Rafe Judkins: "I think-well, I can’t tell you all of them, but in the books, there’s an idea that if you’re born as a man in one life, you’d be born as a man in the next life in the show. We’re not doing that. We’re approaching it as you are a soul and you move through different bodies through whatever life that you’re in. So that’s one. It’s a very fundamental change actually to make to the book series, and it has a lot of ripple effects, and we’ll continue to do things like that I think are more reflective of what hopefully Robert Jordan would be writing if he was writing today.
"I think the idea that the Dragon Reborn doesn’t necessarily need to only be a male character, that’s really important. We see that play out in a number of different ways through the season. Also, as we learn, some of the Dragons of the past were women. How was that different? How did that affect the world? So that one change that we’ve made, it really does flutter through the whole series. I think it’s good to make changes like that and to put them in the show, even if it does have those effects."
----
So, Rafe has changed major, fundamental lore even though he knows that it breaks things. In other places he's said that he is changing the show to match his view of feminism (4th wave) and gender. He doesn't actually like the male characters or their plot lines in the books, he's said that he's more interested in the female characters (esp making Moiraine a 'queer' lead of a major fantasy show - even though the official WoT companion book flat out says "Neither [Moiraine nor Suian] was" - entry on Moiraine pg 499. I don't personally care just seemed like he's more invested in pushing a narrative than focusing on good writing and it's hurting the show all over the place.
Meanwhile, this makes Saidin/Saidar and the prophecies all problematic for him. But it explains a lot of the flaws in the show. He's been saying all this openly from the beginning which is why a chunk of the fandom has been expressing concern.
RE: The taint of Saidin.
In the first few minutes of the show, Liandrin says to the male channeler, "This Power is meant for women and women alone. And when you touch it, you make it filthy." And that is really all that views have to go on. But, Rafe is basically saying that it is the men themselves that are the problem. It also implied from the very beginning that Saidin and Saidar were out. They may retcon this later to be truer to the books, but that is where it stands now... we'll see.
RE: Elias
They had time to invent completely new scenes and introduce throwaway characters (I'm looking at you Stepin). They had time for Elias. But introducing him would have meant actually building Perrin's character.
They did all the male characters dirty - even Lan and Tam.
This is useful source material. I don't appreciate Rafe's take on souls and I don't think he understands that he is essentially defacing the author's artistic expression. I do not think robert jordan would have adapted his story this way. I am not sure what his position on the conversation around transgenderism would be, but I don't think it would be this.
@@amys0482 Probably the closest thing we have in the books vis a vis Jordan and transgenderism would be Aran'gar; though it is a poor analog.
And, I think Rafe understands and just doesn't care. His changes seem very intentional and he's put plenty thought into it. Again, he's admitted he knows it will break things - he just doesn't care.
He's making all sorts of changes based on his personal views.. For example, he's also changing the relationship Rand A/E/M relationship(s).
From an AMA he did on Twitter back in 2018:
Q: Rafe, will Rand's romance plot remain close to the books? I mean, liking one girl at first but ending up with three in the end?
A: No. Let’s just say I’m much more interested in polyamory than polygamy.
Just like Moiraine and Suian. Personally, I think it really takes away from female characters that apparently in Rafeland, females can't be close without being lovers. It makes their friendship seem cheapened somehow.
Anyhow Rafe comments like these are littered all over the place - Twitter, Interviews, etc.
A faithful show would have been amazing.
I could have settled for well written.
We got a poorly written and unfaithful show.
The actors did quite good with what was provided to them.
I don't know what they spent the budget on, but noone that was concerned with good writing reviewed it, or was listened to when they did. Brandon must be pretty upset, and I hope this isn't hurting the chances for a Stormlight Archive show.
Stormlight would also be hard to adapt. Mistborn could be a good candidate for adaptation, though.
Im so late to the party but… I’m gonna be honest, one of the reasons I felt captivated was because I was watching a spoiler free review that explained everything and it made so much sense in my head that I kinda accepted the show logic. Watching the second season have read The Great Hunt I was so underwhelmed that I think I gaslit myself into liking the show but at least it instigated me enough to pickup the books 😂
hmmm! that does make sense
'Diverse cast brings in a diverse audience' every Monday morning I would talk about the latest episode of GOT with my friend from Jamaica. Black people have loved squid game... not one Black person. AKA if it's good people will watch no matter their identity
This is true, but I still don't mind the representation. It's a change I can accept for an adaptation to screen.
@@amys0482 if it stopped there it wouldn't matter as much. But the moment you let them race/gender swap a character they take it as a green light to 'fix' other things. The swap in Dune seems to be the only exception... but I think it was read meat for sjws to celebrate 🍾 the rest of us complaining, instead of trying to cancel it because 'white savior movie' very clever 😉
@@paulwolfley7785 I haven't read Dune so I don't know what character you are referring to. I am FOR social justice generally speaking and I like seeing diversity in media. I don't like that ALL of the golden moments were taken from the male characters in the WOT tv show. It feels unbalanced in the other direction
@@amys0482 watch the expanse it checks every diversity box, but it has good writing and feels natural. It needs to make sense, if half the actors in a movie about ancient China were white that would be stupid
@@amys0482 the race swaps are bad because very one in the rivers where the same... except for Rand being the odd one out, for a very important reason
"My epic, if I compose it-- and Loial's book-- will be no more than seed, if we are both lucky. Those who know the truth will die, and their grandchildren will remember something different. And _their_ grandchildren's grandchildren something else again. Two dozen generations, and you may be the hero of it, not Rand."
-Thom to Elayne, _The Shadow Rising_
(Condemnation, not praise)
It is confounding that they could depict Moraine, not knowing the nature of the dragon and that cosmologically, it must be masculine. How do you have a central conflict without the tainting of Saidin and how the dragon was implicated in that in the last age? In the books Moraine spent 20 years looking for the dragon and was likely one of the best informed on the topic; is it even possible that she would not know about this essential nature?
Fantastic review. Also depressing going forward because the writers do not understand which plot lines are critical to telling this wonderful story.
Daniel Henley! A man who can serenade you and look great while doing it! 😁😂
Lord of the Rings adapted 3 books with a lot of content in 11 hours (extended edition)
Wheel of Time, which has a similar amount of material as JUST The Fellowship of the Ring novel was given around 7 hours. They plenty of time to adapt this book.
I can agree to the melodramatic acting to a certain extent. Examples are Moiraine (although her portrayal is fine overall, every line she delivered was done with such drama that it was just too much) and Liandrin who was also in my opinion just too much most of the time. It doesn’t help that the lines were not the greatest so the overly dramatic delivery makes it worse.
This is subjective, but I would blame the directing not the acting personally in this case. I might change my mind if we see these characters given arcs that the actors struggle to communicate even when the writing is good.
@@amys0482 yeah, it is subjective and I’m probably in the minority about this. I agree the writing and directing may not have helped much with this.
If season 2 of TWoT can replicate the cinematography, acting and action of the Ep 7 cold open then I will watch it. That was about the best scene (aside from the wonky eyes and CGI on Tam al'Thor) in the entire show. The next best scene is the Logain cold open. The worst of the show IMO is the entire Stepin episode. They could have explained the Warder bond without wasting so much precious time with a character that is irrelevant to the series. Your point though at 43:44 is spot on. I was tearing my beard out the entire first season wondering when Rafe and Co. were going to actually focus on the boys. You know.. the main characters of the entire series?
Here's my big question: how many times through did the writers and producers read the full WoT books series. I doubt most of them have even read the full series once. They should have made every one read it at least 3 times through, because you just can't grasp the intricacies of what makes it great from one read through. I agree that it was never going to be possible to be 100% faithful, and that lots of trusting would be required. But that's ALL THE MORE reason that the people doing the truncating and rewriting needed to be intimately familiar with the full story in order to do justice to its heart and substance.
The core of RJs Wheel of Time is off in the show.
Without this strong base.
U got something that can be whatever the showrunners want.
So why not have Rand join the Dark One.And the Forsaken.
And then let the Aes Sedai save everyone in last episode.
That is so brave i think👏😳
You can put a an overlay on top of clips from the show to stop them from being flagged
It's The Wheel of Time if it was told by Egwene.
12:40 if you can't see a message in the changes they made...as if they were honestly trying to adapt it and not "fix" it...I don't know what to say, at this point.
This was a very good critique if the show.
I do think you are giving too many passes for the showrunner, but I can understand your reasoning behind it.
As for me, I thought the writing was atrocious from the beginning and I never made it past the 3rd episode. Although, I have kept up with various reviews. So I know the basic story of the series.
I don't expect any seasons to improve because the foundation of the story is in a horrible state. In fact, I fully expect the series to be canceled before season 3. Since Amazon is not releasing numbers, I base this on Google trends showing a peak of searches when the first 3 episodes aired to an immediate dropoff.
Nice job on this, well done.
I liked the show as a non book reader. But also agree with all your points. Hope it gets better.
Solidify that the DR is a male who will go mad. Minimise the "who is it??" marketing ploy/gimmick, by making it clear that it is Rand earlier on. Show him being in denial, trying to hide it, being scared etc. Then him overcoming it to a degree at the EOTW but at the cost of him experiencing a sampling of madness (show the audience this). He then goes off on his own in a depressive state and to protect his friends.
10 years since I read EOTW so I don't really remember his arc but that would've been a better base to work from than basically ignoring him (except for when they wanted some teen love drama), and hiding info from the audience until the 7th episode, having him incredibly chill about being the DR and then just exiting the stage, again, in a very chill manner.
So much better than what they did. I have my own ideas and lots of things would have worked a great deal better than what they actually went with.
Can't help but feel as if they ended up going for a bait and switch tactic on who the dragon was. The result is they downplayed a lot of story lines to throw people off. This is silly as I still think that even removing my book knowledge Rand stood out as an odd duck, and the complete lack of doing much of anything with him as a character was telling as well. If you assume they are trying to hide something then you start looking for the least likely, which would be Mat and Rand (with Mat's issues in the story I feel like he is out of the running pretty quickly). I wish they had gone the route of just building up each character so that you struggled to pick out which cool skillset denoted them as the Dragon. Perrin with the wolf ability, push up some of Mat's gambler's luck story line, and for Rand show how quickly he wins over Lan with the sword training. You have to hide Rand's channeling of course, but I think that Lan telling Moriaine that Rand has the makings of a good warder would be enough.
17:20 to convince him he wasn't just going mad, but who cares about that? Or show him that not going feral was possible, but that's probably not important. Just have him know what he's doing because MC and do it because the story needs him to, I'm sure that's perfectly fine with a lot of Amazon's intended audience.