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Re: Episode 8 was a disaster Cannoli Send a noteboard - 30/12/2021 12:39:38 AM


And yes, WoT Novices would not know this, I am aware. My point is, the show writers don’t understand the meaning of stuff from the books. They’re not remotely attempting to tell a variant of the same story, just strip-mining it for names and ideas to bolt patchwork fashion onto the hideous visage of their own fantasy creation.

This is exactly right. This isn't an adaptation of the books for TV. Rather, this is Rafe's big chance to show how creative he is by writing a totally different story with some of the same names and concepts. The problem is that he hasn't written a good story.

Nearly everything they chose to do in this episode sucked.

-The defense of Tarwin's Gap was ludicrous. Get your channelers on the wall and hold that narrow space at all costs. Make a series of ditches. Have a ton of men on top of the wall. I could go on and on about this.


It's not like the last Game of Thrones didn't get a lot of shit for how they choose to shoot and stage the big set-piece battle in their final season.
-Rand's confrontation with Ishy fell totally flat.

Yep, because this is the first episode where he had lines. Before that he was a jump scare special effect.
-Perrin may as well have not been in this episode.

But.. but.. the digging! And he ran in circles in the keep looking for Fain, who doubled back on the place he was in in the first place. Clearly the point was to separate Perrin from the Horn did, because it would be a lot easier for Fain to take out bunch of professional soldiers and a giant with a widowed blacksmith was also not in the room...

Or maybe the writers didn't know any other way to get Perrin out of the way so he could survive without Fain looking like a chump. And never mind that his wolf senses should have precluded Fain losing him that easily, since tracking his scent should have been second nature to Perrin...


-Why is this the first time we have heard of the Horn of Valere? Apparently it is going to factor heavily into season 2 since it seems to be Fain's main goal at Fal Dara. However, nobody will care about the theft of the horn that you only now mentioned for the first time. Good thing we spent so much time with Logain and Stepin when we could easily have used a bit more of Tom to set up some important world building like the Horn of Valere. Also, the horn is just under Agelmar's throne... ugh.
See one of the problems with the WoT series is that Lan is so important at the end and matters so much, but the readers just are not that invested in him. So Judkins had to fix the series, by making Lan matter to the viewers, by finding a way to make us care about him. As Jordan failed to do. Sorry, in this case, Jordan simply did not provide sufficient material in Eye of the World for the show to build on, and make Lan's tragic circumstances and story come across to the viewers. /sarcasm
-Why is Uno a blond midget? This is the worst casting decision of all.
Eh, it could have worked, if there was some reason for his existence beyond an in-joke with the WoT-swears. Far as I'm concerned, his physical appearance boils down to "eyepatch".
-Why would Moraine not take Lan to the Eye? It is a supposedly dangerous journey through the blight and in her view everything hinges on getting there safely. Her warder should be indispensable here and his personal safety would be a tertiary consideration for her when she believes the fate of the worlds rests on Rand getting to the Eye and succeeding. Instead Lan needs to get Nynaeve's advice about how to track Moraine and Rand through the blight and then does nothing at all.
Because Nynaeve has to matter, otherwise the relationship is totally unbalanced and we can't have that. Look at the new Matrix, where they needed to make Trinity also The One, because reasons. So I guess Trinity (meaning Three) and Neo (anagram for One) combine to be The Two...? It's also why Egwene gets so much more character polishing. What traits does Rand have to a superlative degree, the way people talk about Egwene on more than one occasion? This is not unique to the show, I can recall readers on the WoTMB & WoTmania who thought Rand deserved a love interest who was more his "equal" (because Elayne is not? Aviendha is not? Min is a lesser being? ). Matching everything to power levels and skill resumes is the same fallacy the Aes Sedai use to defend their general failure to make human connections by claiming that men don't want women who are more powerful. But some readers wanted a "good" version of Lanfear (or the version of Lanfear they projected onto the book character, who was a psycho stalker whose colleagues generally held her in contempt and whom Rand and Asmodean both completely out-thought and out-smarted)
-The whole circle led by Amalissa with burnouts and Egwene sad-healing (resurrecting?) Nynaeve was such a weird choice. If Rafe is going to have someone steal Rand's thunder at Tarwin's gap, at least have the wonder girls take some initiative or something.

This just goes to show how clueless the writers are. They can't even stick to their ideological fixes or messaging and change the story to be consistent with their "improved" version. Like when the Last Game of Thrones got shit for how season five ramped up the violence and misogyny and got a lot of pushback, so they said season six would be all about women on top and girl power. What we got that season was women having girlpower moments at the expense of other women, or with the help or permission of men, which was purely gratuitous by what had already been established. I could go on and on with that tangent from my original point, which was that it doesn't matter if they have a great or better message.

Their choices and priorities show that they aren't nearly as evolved as they congratulate themselves for being. How do they choose to convey Nynaeve's strength? Have her wave a blade around and contrarily argue over semantics with absolutely every authority figure. It shows how little they understand strength in general and Nynaeve in particular. It was a Thing in the books that Egwene ditched her braid as a symbol of her moving on from the Two Rivers. Before it was a symbol of her aspiration to a degree of autonomy and agency that was as high as she could hope in the Two Rivers. Rand was angry about her giving it up, because he was forced to leave the Two Rivers and here Egwene is just throwing it away. But the show writers just saw relationship squabbles, and decided to "fix" Rand by having him be more supportive and understanding of Egwene (although their initial encounter in the village give plenty of clues that he understands her far better than Judkins did after reading 12 books in which she is a major PoV character). And they had her keep the braid to set up Nynaeve's stupid line at the end. What was the point of that? To explain Nynaeve' sacrifice? Was she taking on more of the Power burden on herself, since she should have been the last to be burned out, given that she's so much stronger, and at this point in their careers, much closer to her full potential than Egwene? Who knows, we get no explanations of how the Power works, but we can't even fall back on the books, because they deviate from the channeling rules on more than one occasion. But why does Nynaeve need to explain her sacrifice? It's the core of her character, it should be obvious that it's what Nynaeve would do. Why does she need to explain it in those terms? Would she not do the same for one of the boys? Frankly there isn't much build up to establish a relationship between her and any of them. Her sole one-on-one conversation that comes to mind is with Rand in his inn in Tar Valon, where she mostly hyped Egwene. Or was her speech about the braid a reminder to Egwene of their bond as Two Rivers women, so Egwnene would be motivated to save her in turn? Do we really think Egwene would need that reminder, or a reason to save her?

What does it say about their perception of Egwene, that they think she needs a speech reminding her of the braid ceremony to save Nynaeve? What do they think of Egwene in the books that they feel the need to have her keep the braid and elide that bit of characterization? Did they just not care as much about displaying that part of her character, in order to keep the braid for the finale? Was that line in there to justify a whole new scene with the braiding ceremony, when they have chopped out so much of Thom, and omitted Elyas and the Caemlyn Crew altogether?


-Why would the Seanchen show up to an empty beach with no city/town and with a steep mountain range abutting the beach and make a weird tidal wave? It won't wash inland because of the mountains. It won't overrun any defenses because there aren't any. What is the point? Maybe they think that little girl must be killed at all costs? It is just stupid writing. And why give the Seanchen a barbarian vibe rather than the uber-civilized empire whose superior organization makes them an enormous threat to the entirety of Randland?

Are the writers aware that's why they are a threat? It's not explicitly stated and I don't think such evolved and enlightened persons such as themselves need to dig deeper than "I am wholeheartedly opposed to slavery! Persecute me if you wish for taking such an uncompromising and virtuous stance, but I shall never cease to speak truth to power on this controversial issue!"

I think that explains EVERYTHING we have seen so far or will see in the future about the depiction of the Seanchan. Barbaric? Of course, they're barbarians, they have slaves and they oppress women with the potential for power. Killing a little girl? What do you expect of a society that has slaves, and binds women of power? Stupid and showy waste of effort on pointless destruction? See above, re: slavery and oppression of women...

Bad writers write badly.

Cannoli
“Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions.” GK Chesteron
Inde muagdhe Aes Sedai misain ye!
Deus Vult!
*MySmiley*
This message last edited by Cannoli on 30/12/2021 at 12:46:38 AM
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"Wheel of Time" Episode 8 - 24/12/2021 05:45:37 PM 907 Views
Re: "Wheel of Time" Episode 8 - 24/12/2021 08:32:47 PM 385 Views
It's mediocre at best - 25/12/2021 02:35:31 AM 538 Views
Little bit of good, some meh, but way too much WTF? - 26/12/2021 03:51:48 AM 325 Views
How dare an important character be, uh... Middle Eastern looking. *NM* - 25/12/2021 04:05:25 AM 190 Views
Not Middle Eastern, but a regular guy you meet on the street - 25/12/2021 12:43:21 PM 378 Views
I think you should re-watch that section. - 25/12/2021 11:03:26 PM 391 Views
Good point.....that makes a lot of sense. *NM* - 26/12/2021 03:52:43 AM 187 Views
But how did Rand do it? - 27/12/2021 01:50:48 AM 376 Views
Re: But how did Rand do it? - 27/12/2021 06:14:00 PM 479 Views
And that's another huge failing of the writing team..... - 27/12/2021 08:42:33 PM 354 Views
I love the show; it doesn't mean I think it's good. I love Doctor Who too. - 28/12/2021 05:04:55 AM 316 Views
Love. Really? - 28/12/2021 07:27:30 PM 322 Views
It's an adaptation of books I adored, on TV, with special effects. - 29/12/2021 10:23:22 PM 329 Views
Episode 8 was a disaster - 27/12/2021 05:24:33 PM 335 Views
Agreed - E8 was an epic disaster - 27/12/2021 08:49:42 PM 312 Views
Yeah, they covered ta'veren briefly in an early episode. I think Episode 1. *NM* - 28/12/2021 05:05:58 AM 190 Views
Didn't they just name drop it in the first 2 minutes then never really develop it again? *NM* - 28/12/2021 12:38:22 PM 192 Views
Yes, I think this was the case..... - 29/12/2021 03:33:57 AM 317 Views
Re: Episode 8 was a disaster - 30/12/2021 12:39:38 AM 351 Views

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