this post was submitted on 13 Sep 2023
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Wheel of Time
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Discussion of the Wheel of Time Books and Show.
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For me, every episode has been better than the one before it this season, and only 1 or 2 episodes from season 1 are actually on par with the average for season 2. The new character introductions have been on point, especially Aviendha today, and the Forsaken are WAY more intriguing and scary in the show than they were in the books.
The problems I have involve too little screen time for Mat (I want book 3 Mat ASAP), and not enough swordplay for Rand and Lan. But other than that, I am loving the show.
Totally agree on the Forsaken, looks like they've cut out and/or merged together all of the incompetent clowns so the remaining ones can get down to business
Yeah Lan talks way too much compared to the books LOL but that's fine. If he's going to be a character he has to talk. And yes Mat's role is where my beef is I guess. They are slowly re-integrating him back into the story line. Characters are not the same as in the books anymore. They've changed them to suit a TV show.
I've only finished EP3. I thought forsaken were pretty scary in the book too with supernatural abilities?
I kinda disagree. A lot of people have said this, but I think what we're missing out is just the Chibi/Tolkien coloring of characters early on. If we readers saw any of these actors/characters dropped into another fantasy setting, our knee-jerk would be "wait, why the hell did they steal Mat from Wheel of Time for this show?"
Some of the growth curves were smoothed. They opened us with dark Mat, and they used the actor change to expedite us through that phase into the "Dovie'andi se tovya sagain" Mat we get for 5-6 books or so.
Heck, even Lan. I'd say he has a similar number of lines per scene as in the book. We just don't get nonstop internal monologue from characters saying "he's stony-faced and he never talks".
Why does everyone who criticizes the show "being different from the books" end up having a weak grasp of the books? Yes, the Forsaken are terrifying. They don't really have "supernatural abilities" beyond the One Power. They have a smattering of Talents (Semhirage is a scary-good healer, but we never really see her heal anyone... Lanfear and Moghedian are next-level Dreamwalkers, and Ishy has reasonable talent in that field, Rahvin and Graendal have Talent-level skill in Compulsion), but not much of anything else. They have access to the True Power, which has similarities with the One Power after a fashion, but can do some things the One Power cannot at a massive price.