Wheel of Time: TV show - (Books in spoilers).

**Halie Satanus** · November 09, 2019, 12:35 PM

So this is happening.

Rosamund Pike has a major part and Roose Bolton himself has been cast (as a minor character). The rest of the main cast are all fairly young and unknown. Series is being made by Amazon so expect a decent budget if the show generates an audience.

I'm late to this one in terms of reading the books, being near the end of the second (there 15 to date). Any way, enjoying the books. It's a sprawling world of Trollocs (orc-like monsters) Fade's, Myrddraal and the Aes Sedai, good and evil magic and lots of fantasy medieval-ish characters, cities and castles and weird alternate worlds and dragons (okay no actual dragons).

https://wot.fandom.com/wiki/A_beginning
https://twitter.com/WoTonPrime

**HannibalExMachina** · November 09, 2019, 06:32 PM

i made the mistake to start the first book as an audio, was so bored i never returned to it. does the series get better, or does it remain a generic slog? id like to find out if i should even bother with an adaptation

**Halie Satanus** · November 10, 2019, 03:11 AM

I feel ya. It takes awhile for the story to open up and there's a bit too much scene setting 'it was a dusty road, the dryness of the air stung the back of his throat as the gold and copper leaves fell all around and the sun blah blah blah.... That sort of thing I tend to skim, the advantage of reading over audio

.

I wonder where you gave up, the pace picks up pretty quick in terms of action but, you might be as well waiting for the tv show.

I remember WoT from the early days of the TW.Org, there were a handful of fans (led by legendary modder Myrddraal) around trying to get a mod going, not sure it got off the early stages.

**Ishan** · November 10, 2019, 07:09 AM

Couldn't find any release date so I'm guessing in early 2020s or mid. Medieval stuff always piques my interest so will give it a shot.

**Halie Satanus** · November 10, 2019, 07:42 AM

According to IMDB 2021.

**Ishan** · November 10, 2019, 08:42 AM

Oh

. That's too long.

**Halie Satanus** · November 10, 2019, 09:38 AM

15 books, that's roughly a book every 6 weeks.

**conon394** · November 10, 2019, 10:07 AM

Originally Posted by Halie Satanus

I feel ya. It takes awhile for the story to open up and there's a bit too much scene setting 'it was a dusty road, the dryness of the air stung the back of his throat as the gold and copper leaves fell all around and the sun blah blah blah.... That sort of thing I tend to skim, the advantage of reading over audio

.

I wonder where you gave up, the pace picks up pretty quick in terms of action but, you might be as well waiting for the tv show.

I remember WoT from the early days of the TW.Org, there were a handful of fans (led by legendary modder Myrddraal) around trying to get a mod going, not sure it got off the early stages.

Gave up - for. Too much endless sprawling, too much added stuff again and again forgetting it or changing stuff. It is as if JRRT did not just pick couple of years out of all of his literary creation and write one tight story of one potential epic end to one part of his world cycle, but had to write them all every nifty ideal everything (or if Homer sat down for a month and sang not just once slice of the siege of Troy but all of it and all the back story [or again If JRRM had not lost his way and blunder into expanding his story away from the tight political drama of a fantasy war of roses it was back in a time]). Not one or two arcs to follow but three or maybe six or more, plus palace intrigue, not once but dozens of times... Want the big bads back they never die. But really worst is the man really needed to not write so many female characters, because he was not very good at it I feel like I listening to friends whining about dating back in High school half the time.

Sorry i guess everyone has a favorite fiction and of course there are always an equal number of detractors. so I guess I just felt like WOT needed a really good editor. Somebody to say you know maybe this can a different set of books, or a short story about this character or that.

**Halie Satanus** · November 10, 2019, 01:47 PM

Maybe the show runners will do just that. Though D&D took a lot of criticism for cutting parts out of GoT. I'll likely get through the first 3 books and decide whether to go on.

**Gaidin** · November 10, 2019, 04:10 PM

RJ made the first book a familiar territory book to LOTR for people and then he basically went his own direction from there. The first five chapters are pretty character introduction, but Winternight is where it all picks up in a much faster fashion than LOTR no less. Depending on where you are there is some territory that's important enough that it actually *has* to be described, and while later in the books, he does get carried away with whimsical descriptions. But...when you're putting that on a screen, it cuts down wordage to what you literally see.

As for casting...well...they're picking up people like this:

https://twitter.com/WoTonPrime/statu...24485022863361

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

**alhoon** · November 20, 2019, 09:42 AM

I consider the Wheel of Time one of the best book series I've read. I understand that it is not for everyone, but IMO it is much better than most fantasy series including GRRM's Song of Ice and Fire.

I have low expectations from the TV Series. Since I loved the books very, very, much I will give the show a try but I expect heartbreak. I expect the series to be much more shallow, show practically little respect to the "obscure" parts that I treasure in the books and unable to capture the feeling of the books. I also expect the people, events and places to not match my imagination or even the descriptions.

When it comes to the casting for example, we have a tall blond white middle-aged woman for Moraine, that was short, tan, dark-haired and had an ageless face. Then, we have racial diversity in a backwater, semi-isolated rural area of a couple of villages where most people didn't spend a day more than 30 miles from the house they were born at, and only the protagonist had different looks to the point that everyone commented on that and it is important in the later books. I don't care if they are white, brown, black, or blue - but they should all be similar in appearance to the point that you could tell a local by the looks similar to rural areas in much of the world - again, because it is important and because it happens in the books and has plot resolutions attached to it.
Going from the casting of the main protagonists from Two Rivers... the actor playing Mat and Tam should have been much darker, the actress playing Egwene should have been lighter and the actress playing Nynaeve... should wear a wig because you can't have Nynaeve without her braid.

And then of course, we have the premise of the series changing the focus from the three protagonist to ... a character that is important to the first 5 books.

Last but not least: There's no way this can be done in live action the "proper" way. The whole 15 books take place in >> 2 1/2 years <<
So, the production has to condense 15 huge books to 50-60 episodes at most. And to do that, whole arcs have to be butchered out. Sure, much of the books are descriptions, but that means that 800-pages books would correspond to 15 500 pages books.
To do that, the authors have to viciously cut a great many of the ancillary arcs that (for me) made the books so enjoyable ... and are much of the critique you guys are leveling against the books.

For example (Book spoilers)

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Yes, the books have a lot of feeler and arcs that ultimately fail and lead to nowhere to cut, but for me, the very realistic "out of 10 evil plots, 1 progressed, 1 failed and 8 remained on paper" was the soul of Wheel of Time ... along with 2-page descriptions of the dress of an Aes Sedai and how her fireplace looked.
Sure, the fireplace can be shown in the background during some discussion, but who would pay attention to it?
Who would notice the doll collection of a random Aes Sedai and then guess at its cultural significance for this woman?
Where would we be reminded on the cultural significance of the Ebou-Darri daggers, with black beads for kids that died in duels etc?
These things enrich the world of Wheel of Time and make it so, so majestic.

These thoughts make me pessimistic about WoT.

**Halie Satanus** · November 20, 2019, 05:54 PM

Casting looks okay to me. I wouldn't have imagined people from the Two Rivers to be light/mixed ethnicity, but they all look of similar complexion and Rand/actor looks different enough to pass as, different. Not sure about Lan being Asian, but meh...

Rosamund Pike is 5'7, just above average for a woman these days and they can do a lot with make up/wigs, camera angles. Not something I'd get too hung up on.

I agree it'll be a hard show to film the way events are described in the books, at least to keep it 'real' enough so not to lose the audience with too much magic/fantasy and the many dream sequences might be a tough sell. I guess it depends how they go about shooting it.

**Gaidin** · November 20, 2019, 07:08 PM

Originally Posted by alhoon

Yes, the books have a lot of feeler and arcs that ultimately fail and lead to nowhere to cut, but for me, the very realistic "out of 10 evil plots, 1 progressed, 1 failed and 8 remained on paper" was the soul of Wheel of Time ... along with 2-page descriptions of the dress of an Aes Sedai and how her fireplace looked.
Sure, the fireplace can be shown in the background during some discussion, but who would pay attention to it?
Who would notice the doll collection of a random Aes Sedai and then guess at its cultural significance for this woman?
Where would we be reminded on the cultural significance of the Ebou-Darri daggers, with black beads for kids that died in duels etc?
These things enrich the world of Wheel of Time and make it so, so majestic.

These thoughts make me pessimistic about WoT.

Well, that's my point. For a lot of the minor characters he got a lot of the cultural significance of many countries through the background discriptions. Which means you're cutting down about 1/4 to 2/5 the pages to setting dressing. And he also yes, did describe a lot of the world through minor characters having plots that failed or did not otherwise go anywhere. Which is not something many other authors did. That's about another 1/6 of the books. They don't really have to cut a whole lot of the main character activity, though the timeline will have to be logistically altered because there's no way this series would be done in 3 years(the time the books were done in, timeline wise). People age. Too bad, so sad, for the fans.

**Common Soldier** · November 20, 2019, 09:10 PM

Originally Posted by conon394

Gave up - for. Too much endless sprawling, too much added stuff again and again forgetting it or changing stuff. It is as if JRRT did not just pick couple of years out of all of his literary creation and write one tight story of one potential epic end to one part of his world cycle, but had to write them all every nifty ideal everything (or if Homer sat down for a month and sang not just once slice of the siege of Troy but all of it and all the back story [or again If JRRM had not lost his way and blunder into expanding his story away from the tight political drama of a fantasy war of roses it was back in a time]). Not one or two arcs to follow but three or maybe six or more, plus palace intrigue, not once but dozens of times... Want the big bads back they never die. But really worst is the man really needed to not write so many female characters, because he was not very good at it I feel like I listening to friends whining about dating back in High school half the time.

Sorry i guess everyone has a favorite fiction and of course there are always an equal number of detractors. so I guess I just felt like WOT needed a really good editor. Somebody to say you know maybe this can a different set of books, or a short story about this character or that.

I kind of agree with you. I started off as a fan, but then lost interest in it half way through the series. It had too many characters, and instead of killing off characters to make room.for new characters the way Game of Thrones did it just seem to keep adding them, only rarely killing off a major character. Some people.might like that sprawling soap.opera style, but I prefer to have fewer main characters to focus the plot on. That may be merely my taste, if you like soap operas with lots of different characters good my off in lots of directions, Wheel of Time might be for you.

**alhoon** · November 24, 2019, 06:53 AM

Originally Posted by Halie Satanus

Casting looks okay to me. I wouldn't have imagined people from the Two Rivers to be light/mixed ethnicity, but they all look of similar complexion and Rand/actor looks different enough to pass as, different. Not sure about Lan being Asian, but meh...

Rosamund Pike is 5'7, just above average for a woman these days and they can do a lot with make up/wigs, camera angles. Not something I'd get too hung up on.

I agree it'll be a hard show to film the way events are described in the books, at least to keep it 'real' enough so not to lose the audience with too much magic/fantasy and the many dream sequences might be a tough sell. I guess it depends how they go about shooting it.

Tam and Mat (which are anagrams) are too light for Two Rivers compared to the rest and Egwene is too dark. But the skin tones of the two light-skinned actors are not the only problem. Some people look Middle-Easterns, some look Africans and some look South Indians... all from the two rivers.

Lan I have no problem with as he's from far away. I expected him to look much more grim but that can be fixed.

**conon394** · November 24, 2019, 09:33 AM

I have low expectations from the TV Series. Since I loved the books very, very, much I will give the show a try but I expect heartbreak. I expect the series to be much more shallow, show practically little respect to the "obscure" parts that I treasure in the books and unable to capture the feeling of the books. I also expect the people, events and places to not match my imagination or even the descriptions.

See you are doomed to be disappointed. If you love book X than a movie/TV version of it always likely to fail. I mean I could barely stand chewing through Last of the Mohicans thus the movie adaption (most recent) is great (that is I agree with Twain). But contra of course Perter Jackson's destroying Faramir and the value of Pipen's oath, or the silly green dead fight thing means I have never watched the LOTR since I saw them in the theater...

**alhoon** · November 25, 2019, 03:50 AM

Originally Posted by conon394

or the silly green dead fight thing means I have never watched the LOTR since I saw them in the theater...

You're talking about the green toothpaste covering Gondor. We avoid talking, no, we avoid THINKING of the Green toothpaste of Gondor.

Regardless, sure Lord of the Rings had its failings but it was close to the original. If Wheel of time tv series is 80% as accurate as LotR was to the material and the legacy of the books I would be ecstatic. But...
Let's be realistic here. There's no way this is going to happen because if the TV series play it close to the books (especially after book 3), then the series would be:
- very expensive
- very long
- for a smaller target group

I would expect the TV series to start at 60%-70% close to material from the books, not the books themselves, and then deviate.
When I say "close to material from the books, not the books" I mean, if they keep arc A, B, C and cut arcs D, E and Z ... I expect the tv series to be moderately close to A, B and C with perhaaaaps a few elements of E in there.

Example:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

**conon394** · December 17, 2019, 10:25 AM

It depends still. I mean there is always a huge gulf between film and book. Adaption is a difficult art between media. As I said above I think Jordan got lost in not focusing so that makes and adaption difficult from the get go. The same for HBO Martian had a tight political drama, but kinda also wanted to to I think end up with the epic resolution battles of the end of ages kind of thing.

For the WOT I would think you will need shaving. The books are simply too sprawling. But I suppose it comes down to if they can capture some of the feel effectively.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Say for all of that I would it could be cut or minimized. The key thing to capture is the growing sense of paranoia and distrust and everyone deciding that because of that they will be willfully manipulative and burn the village down decisions to save it. I'll admit I never finished so I not sure where the whole PF and dagger thing came down to. I don't think one TV show can sustain what 6 different 'hero' narratives 3 men and 3 women + the stories of the forsaken and various other rulers witches etc. How many 'lancers' (thanks TV Tropes) can Rand have in a show. I mean even Homer only told to a bit of the Myths. JRRT was lucky in that he only picked out one nominally final end of his world to publish and now movies. Jordan wanted to do all in on set go. Maybe the best tact would be to go all artsy. Tell the story over and over from one different POV lead character. Not obviously Rand to see how it feels to not be quite in control but otherwise powerful. Toss in the gray to evil characters and you can do Rashomon seeing how things play out under each individual narrative..

**alhoon** · December 25, 2019, 10:01 AM

Originally Posted by conon394

It depends still. I mean there is always a huge gulf between film and book. Adaption is a difficult art between media. As I said above I think Jordan got lost in not focusing so that makes and adaption difficult from the get go. The same for HBO Martian had a tight political drama, but kinda also wanted to to I think end up with the epic resolution battles of the end of ages kind of thing.

For the WOT I would think you will need shaving. The books are simply too sprawling. But I suppose it comes down to if they can capture some of the feel effectively.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Say for all of that I would it could be cut or minimized. The key thing to capture is the growing sense of paranoia and distrust and everyone deciding that because of that they will be willfully manipulative and burn the village down decisions to save it. I'll admit I never finished so I not sure where the whole PF and dagger thing came down to. I don't think one TV show can sustain what 6 different 'hero' narratives 3 men and 3 women + the stories of the forsaken and various other rulers witches etc. How many 'lancers' (thanks TV Tropes) can Rand have in a show. I mean even Homer only told to a bit of the Myths. JRRT was lucky in that he only picked out one nominally final end of his world to publish and now movies. Jordan wanted to do all in on set go. Maybe the best tact would be to go all artsy. Tell the story over and over from one different POV lead character. Not obviously Rand to see how it feels to not be quite in control but otherwise powerful. Toss in the gray to evil characters and you can do Rashomon seeing how things play out under each individual narrative..

Apologies Conon but... I have trouble understanding the above post. I don't mean that I disagree, I don't understand enough to disagree. What I mean is that I don't understand the expressions you use, I don't get the meaning of the sentences. I am not a native English speaker but this is one of very few times that I can't make sense of a whole paragraph.