Television Amazon Studios - "The Wheel of Time" Official Thread - Season 2 release date: 1 Sept 2023

[Kal-El814]

On 9/30/2023 at 12:58 PM, DPCyric said:

 

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They seem to be setting Mat up with Min and Perrin with Aviendha. Kinda hope I am wrong about that though I do enjoy the Mat and Tuon pairing in the book.

 

 

I assume some of that is going to have to change.

 

Spoiler

Who knows how much track this show is going to have, but I don’t know that they can have a black character be explicitly pro-slavery for the majority of their time on a television show.

 

[DPCyric]

That finale... I may have teared up a bit... not only was it better than most fantasy shows it was better than most fantasy movies.

[Mercury33]

5 hours ago, DPCyric said:

That finale... I may have teared up a bit... not only was it better than most fantasy shows it was better than most fantasy movies.

gonna watch tonight. Without spoiling anything. Do they try and tackle the more “grand/insane” aspects of the finale from the book? Or are they basically just tapping out on trying to adapt the books most insane stuff and it’s more like the ending to S1?

[DPCyric]

4 hours ago, Mercury33 said:

gonna watch tonight. Without spoiling anything. Do they try and tackle the more “grand/insane” aspects of the finale from the book? Or are they basically just tapping out on trying to adapt the books most insane stuff and it’s more like the ending to S1?

 

They dialed back some of the more insane aspects... I only have one small complaint that would have only added a couple minutes to the run time but other than that was amazing!

[Mercury33]

Yeah I think that could have used another 20 minutes to kinda slow it down and linger on a few moments more. But overall I loved that finale. They’re hitting all the important beats but the underlying character story is much much better and more interesting than the book was at this point. 

[DPCyric]

1 hour ago, Mercury33 said:

Yeah I think that could have used another 20 minutes to kinda slow it down and linger on a few moments more. But overall I loved that finale. They’re hitting all the important beats but the underlying character story is much much better and more interesting than the book was at this point. 

 

There was a missing sword fight most notably... Season 2 is so good I would like them to go back and refilm parts of Season 1 and release a couple more episodes for it lol. I wonder what other forsaken are being cut out since we are getting 8 out of 13  If the next season is better than this one we might have a TV adaption better than the books at this rate 

[Kal-El814]

Finished this up recently. I'll spoiler the section where I compare stuff to the books that the show hasn't covered yet.

 

Overall I think this season was a lot better than season 1. The actors seem a bit more comfortable in their roles and most of the returning folks are better than they were in season 1. The actors playing Perrin and Nynaeve... I kind of can't get a read on whether or not they're written in a way that's wooden or if it's just the performances? Or both I guess. Both Nynaeve and Egwene are much less petulant than they were written at this point (this is especially evident on my re-read, Jesus Christ) so that's appreciated even if Nynaeve's vibes seem to either be screaming or completely restrained. With her specifically I don't THINK it's the actor? She seemed more fleshed out within her Accepted trial, so I guess she's just being told to look into the near distance in every scene. It's weird.

 

Things moved along a bit more cohesively than the first season for sure, which is nice.

 

While I appreciate (and often quite like) that some of the stuff in the show isn't in sync with the books, I think there's a bunch of stuff in just this season that just doesn't work even within TV show Randland. How on earth could Egwene slap the a'dam on Renna? She clearly intends to use it as a weapon, she shouldn't have been able to touch the thing. How was Logain able to see Moiraine's shield? They established Rand could only see it while he was channeling / holding the source and Logain can't do that anymore. The Dark One giving Lanfear "eternal life" doesn't REALLY jive with her being apparently unkillable? I have no idea what we're supposed to make of the fact that she can get completely fucking shanked then shake it off but she's sweating a spat with Moghedien? Ishamael is struggling to break Egwene's shield with fireballs but Moraine can single handedly torpedo an entire Seanchan fleet from miles away? Also I don't think the show is consistent with how reincarnation and the works? Mat drinks the funky juice and in his past lives he's Mat. But Rand isn't? I'm pretty sure the show established that being able to see flows / weaves is important, how the hell did the Seanchan shield Rand bases on vibes?

 

This isn't intended to bitch about "plot holes" but the show does seem to contradict itself... pretty often for there only being 16 episodes so far.

 

Anyway Lanfear and Ishamael were both highlights. Logain is pretty cool too. Lan having more of a personality continues to be good, but I dunno that I like him straight up baiting and lying to Logain? That was weird. One of the things that I was kinda hoping the show would "fix" from the books is that the Aiel really fall into the "noble savage" trope pretty fucking hard in the books and I don't think it's aged well. It doesn't seem like they're pivoting on that, which is a shame. The show obviously is aware that some of the way that the characters, particularly women, were written has aged equivalently badly and they've done a lot of work to address that. I liked Rand's handling of Turak. I wonder if the time spent with house Damodred will pay off later on. And while the special effects range from occasionally very cool to occasionally... not great... the practical costuming in the show is consistently really solid. The overall art design is too, it's a really fun show to just look at.

 

Anyway, some thoughts about the show from someone who's read all the books. I will double spoiler anything that hasn't happened on the show yet.

 

Spoiler

The changes to Liandrin are smart. I remember her being kinda one note "I was born poor and fuck that shit Imma Darkfriend now" in thee books, having an actual hook here was cool. They kinda had me going about whether or not she'd end up bad in this one, but it is what it is I suppose.

 

I know there are literal power rankings for channelers on the WoT wiki and I find that kind of fandom exhausting, but... I have no idea what anyone is allegedly capable of, power wise, on this show. Like at all. If the creators do, I don't think they show it on screen effectively. Moriaine struggles to open The Ways, then Lanfear just pops it open. Okay, cool, we're establishing Lanfear is dope. And they talk about how Ishamael was The Dark One's main guy, so presumably he's Lanfear level. Then Moiraine blows up a whole fleet, but Ishamael just does a lot of chipping damage to Egwene, while Lanfear gets dunked on by Moghedien? Rand's taken no classes at Saidin University and blows up inns while he's sleeping but can OHKO a whole Seanchan squadron? I guess this makes more sense than him legit sword fighting a Blademaster to death after a few months of lessons from Lan. They show brand new damane capable of blowing air great distances, even someone without Egwene's juice. Then the best they can do is a few hadoukens before they get worked? The books end up having huge issues with the power, who can do what with it, and when they choose to do so, so it's not like this is off brand for the property, it's just strange seeing it in such rapid succession, especially since they can presumably learn from Jordan's growing pains which were the cause of some of that on the page in the first half of the books.

 

I feel like Nynaeve's personality on the show is an overcorrection for how hugely petulant she is, especially at this time in the books. It's occasionally exhausting to read and I don't think you could act the character as written without being rightfully called out for how often she'd come off shrewish. But it does seem like they honed off a little too much material here.

 

I have no idea why Perrin is so good at fighting. When he goes into Altered Beast mode... fine, sure. But he's holding his own against trained soldiers in this! He's got no armor and he's fucking with Seanchan soldiers! How good he gets at fighting so fast is an issue in the books too, but it's still kinda weird to see.

 

I wonder if the House Damodred drama will pay off. I liked that they showed the human cost of being long lived for both Liandrin and Moiraine. For as much as Jordan tried to focus on the game of houses a lot of felt like filler to me in the books. 

 

I feel like the show also does a good job at showing the Ajah / Tower infighting. Moiraine and Siuan having a relationship and it being the cost of supporting Rand seems like a good change. This shows interpretation of the three oaths and Moiraine being forced to obey Siuan is something, I can’t tell how I feel about it at the moment. 

 

Spoilers for stuff later in the books.

 

Spoiler

I wonder if they'll reduce or change the people in the Black Ajah. Since we're seeing fewer Aes Sedai it's gonna come off like 20% of the tower are Darkfriends

 

What is the deal with The Forsaken on this show. Having fewer of them probably makes sense, but again... Lanfear can be straight up murdered and TDO can heal her? The books make it pretty clear that when you're a Darkfriend TDO has your soul on lock so he can bring you back later. And I assume he could use his juice to heal someone (I can't remember if he ever does that). But if you're dead, he's gotta put your soul back in another body. This shit is weird.

 

Also having Moghedien just straight up put Lanfear in check was wild. Why would Lanfear say "light help you Rand" or however she phrased that. Really bizarre word choice there.

 

I'm dreading Faile coming onto the show.

 

 

Anyway, excited to see more. I read somewhere that S3 will be books 3 and 4, so... maybe this has a small hope of "finishing"