The Wheel of Time Season 1 Review

My final thoughts in terms of review of the first season of the wheel of time. #TheWheelOfTime
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[@DanielGreeneReviews]

Sorry if some of the points here sound redundant to what I said in the episode reviews. I tried to cut down to the key points and pull from the most substantial examples. Enjoy! Edit: Also the Min casting is perfect @ me all you want.

[@Aviv704]

I don't like the final ep. references to the last book. I worry the point would come across as repetition rather than character growth

[@nicklott6577]

Daniel why did they change the power ?

[@95absev]

Do you not have an issue with the power creep of 5 women being able to kill thousands of trollocs? Feels like it falls well under production issues as well, but it should also be discussed as almost as much of an issue with the power as the nynaeve resurrection, IMO

[@GeeksandGrub]

The Final Episode brought to light a flaw with the whole show in the writing and episode count. You touched on it, but your point was a little different. Having only 8 episodes amd knowing it would only be 8, there should not have been so much emphasis on non-main cast members. The White Tower, Steppin, the mourning, were wholly unnecessary to the plot of season 1 and did very little to help a connection to the main cast. Similarly, the emphasis and Lord Agelmar and the Lady Amalisa. That time could have been better suited to character development of the main cast. And there was a lot of emphasis on secondary and tertiary characters that hurt the development of the main characters. They really needed ten episodes or to more focus the story on the main characters. Since they knew they weren't getting 10 episodes, it is wholly the fault of Rafe that so much of season 1 focused on non-main characters to the detriment of all.

[@cometraza]

In my opinion the show failed to capture the spirit of adventure and the thrill of a perilous life changing journey which the characters went through while being constantly hunted by the forces of darkness which was so grippingly conveyed by Robert Jordan in the Eye of the World and which really made it so interesting to the reader. Lack of a sufficient number of episodes definitely made it worse.

[@DinoKaric1]

Halfway through the first book, I thought id check out the first episode to see how well they adapted it. And I'll say this; they got the names right.

[@Argosh]

Partially... :P

[@Uhtredrag1080]

Yep. I've seen bad adaptions but I think this one takes the cake.

[@taylorfrazier7919]

dude just wait till you get to the end of the book/last episode. Dont know if I will continue watching. Its like not even the same story. Changing main characters story arcs to fit an agenda. The showrunners are fucking stupid

[@RobinsMusic]

@@azlanadil3646 Avatar doesnt have any adaptations

[@user.0704]

@@Uhtredrag1080 who cares? It's a good series.

[@JesusIzAPunkRocker]

I remember watching LoTR Fellowship and feeling like Peter Jackson *got it*, you know? Like one of my fellow nerds somehow tricked a big production company into granting him the means to tell the story right. Seeing the deft exposition dump voiced by Kate's Galadriel, accompanied by the score, then the shire, then seeing Bilbo invite Gandalf in and take his hat, I knew immediately I was home in Bag End. The love for the source material, the meticulous care put into Middle Earth's themes, sets, costumes, props, lore, and Tolkien's characters just radiates from those movies. I cannot say the same of Rafe Judkins' Wheel of Time.

[@georgeeast5502]

Couldn't have said it better myself. With all the pointless changes, not only to the plot(which might be needed in some very few cases), but also to characters and lore(why would you change these things at all?) It feels like Rafe isn't a fan of the books/doesn't respect the books at all. With Peter Jackson, it felt like he loved the world and story Tolkien built so much that he had to bring it to screen. With Rafe, it just seems like he wants to pick and choose what he wants in, add in his own pointless storylines and vision, and to make money and tell 'his version' of Wheel of Time. That sits bad with me. I wouldn't have guessed Rafe was a 'fan' of the WoT books if I hadn't been told earlier. Ultimately it feels like Peter Jackson wanted to translate Tolkien's vision as directly as possible to screen, whereas Rafe wants to translate Jordan's vision to his own version. Someone like that shouldn't be in charge of this amazing series. Time to call up Peter Jackson.

[@ciaranmcsavvy7565]

There was a massive backlash against Jackson from hardcore Tolkien heads after fellowship came out, easily as big as the backlash WoT has gotten at the moment. Which is pretty mad looking back on it in hindsight but very few adaptations avoid it when the property is loved. Not defending the failings of this season but personally don't think there's anything that can't be salvaged further down the line.

[@JesusIzAPunkRocker]

@@ciaranmcsavvy7565 respectfully, I disagree. The deviation from the books to the screen in LoTR (especially in Fellowship) just does not compare to the deviation that took place in WoT. I recall people vehemently taking exception to the Bombadil/borrowdowns exclusion, and Glorfindel's omission in favor of Arwen spiriting Frodo to Rivendell. These are, in hindsight, minor exclusions that change very little of the plot, and in some cases improve it (big fan of giving Arwen something to do as female characters are notoriously sparce in LoTR). But the shire, Bilbo's birthday, prancing pony, action on weather top, council of Elrond, caradhras, moria, balrog, khazad-dum, Galadriel, Boromir at Amon Hen, and Frodo's departure were masterfully adapted from page to screen, in some cases identically. Some of my favorite lore-heavy omissions from FoTR needed further exposition, weren't integral to the plot, and unfortunately couldn't be fit in to a 3 hr movie, and that's just the nature of adaptations. Despite these omissions, most importantly for me, it FELT undeniably like middle earth, and the story I grew up reading. Now contrast this with WoT. Character backstories have completely changed to be more grimdark(dead wives and broken homes), important lore and character development is subtracted (what and who is the dragon??), unimportant plot points are added(Siuan/Moiraine, while well acted and titillating, appears nowhere and is never an integral part of the books(not counting new spring)), characters are invented (Stepin). Cliche dramatic devices are employed (fridged wife, love triangles, reviving the dead). The rules and limitations of the one power are ill-defined. Almost no scene from the show occurs in the books. Isn't that wild to consider? No disrespect, but I vehemently disagree. The deviations in LoTR simply do not compare to the deviations made so far in WoT. These two adaptations and their respective reactions are not equivalent

[@neiltaylor513]

Even the changes were justified. Tom, dropped a character that wasn’t really necessary. Glorindel for Arwen, cuts out a character that didn’t appear again, less bloat and increased female representation.

[@JesusIzAPunkRocker]

@@neiltaylor513 totally agree. Also, God love Tolkien, but he did not write elaborative action scenes. The watcher in the water, the cave troll, and the uruk-hai taking the halflings were all excellent *additions* that used visual media's strengths, shored up some weaknesses in Tolkien's writing, and added further value.

[@Cam_Wolfe]

I've been saying constantly that (personally, I feel...) making changes from the books in an adaptation is always fine AS LONG AS those changes are either necessary, or result in a better or equally good story. Most of my disappointment with the show isn't that they made changes from the books, it's that they made changes that resulted in worse storytelling. (e.g. the 'Perrin being jealously in love with Egwene' sub plot that had literally no significant impact on anything) Anyway, I know watching and reviewing this show as a WoT mega-fan would have been a tricky experience, but this was a great review man!

[@sacredbeastzenon]

I don't see how being a WOT mega-fan would make this review a tricky experience at all. This is vastly inferior in everyway to the books.

[@Cam_Wolfe]

@@sacredbeastzenon It's fine you think that (you have plenty of reason to) but if I was a huge fan of a certain IP and it was FINALLY being adapted, tricky is exactly the word I would use to describe trying to watch that adaptation critically, without the rose coloured glasses of nostalgia. It would be even trickier accepting that an adaptation you waited forever for, is not very good. It's the joy of seeing those characters finally on the screen, balanced with the fact they're being butchered in a lot of the story telling. I dunno, maybe that's just me personally

[@nicklott6577]

Totally ok with changes, but why change how the one power works, why cut the the prologue, also character don’t feel like the character, characters do really dumb things

[@Kage-jk4pj]

Hopefully in 30 years I'll still be alive and there will be another adaptation by than.

[@zachyeet1806]

Agree. Some changes were okay, but they didn’t have to sandbag all the men to buff the women. There are plenty of girl power moments in the book, but to cut Rand’s finale that demonstrates his power as the dragon and give it to some no name channeller at the end?! That’s as sacrilege to me as what they did to Perrin in E1. They went woke. The show is lost. This isn’t something that will improve.

[@JM-pm3tb]

The excuse that they didn't have enough time/episodes to do the story justice doesn't hold water. Peter Jackson's "Lord of the Rings" trilogy covered the 3 book series in only 11.7 hours of screen time... The problem with WOT is the poor directing, writing and editing choices.

[@Axterix13]

And keep in mind they wasted basically over an entire episode's worth of time on that warder.

[@winxclubflora8446]

@@Axterix13 they just needed to follow the books! They destroyed the adaptation

[@zero59267]

And all of those you mentioned are premeditated by the showrunner's vision, most likely Rafe's own twisted vision of an 'ideal' Wheel of Time world, not Jordan's. This show is closer to a fan fiction rather than an adaptation, a mediocre fan fiction.

[@BW022]

Yes, but notice they had tons of time to put stuff not in the books into the TV series. Moiraine was a background character. None of the story was from her POV and things like the village fight, her romance with their leader, her capturing/stilling Logain, etc. either weren't in the books or were done off-screen. The warder story, Rand and Ewgene being physical, etc. everyone talking in the village, etc. All those were choices to add stuff not in the books. Likewise, the choice not to just make it clear Rand was the Dragon Reborn just added more screen time to the others which wasn't needed. We didn't need the opening with the White Cloaks, Perrin's marriage, etc. All that time could easily have fitted Rand meeting Elayne in. Jordan's writing was tight in the books. Yes, a lot happened, but if you reread book 1, it definitely moved. This one both dragged with scenes which didn't move the plot, added confusion, didn't keep your eyes focused on the main characters, and added a bunch of stuff which did zero to help and probably just confused things. And so what if they didn't have enough time for a season to cover one book. Do we really expect them to run 14 seasons? So what if they took two season (not that I think it would). No... they told another story and it just wasn't good.

[@ChinaraAhmadova]

The biggest foul taste I had from the show as non-book reader is the fact that I couldn't totally get the world, magic system and how things work due to lack of proper communication and inconsistencies. So will read the book next year to get the full flavor I need out of it:D

[@patricksmith8262]

After you read the book(s), you'll look back on the show and be wondering what on Earth the show team were thinking with all the questionable changes they made.

[@craigh5236]

Yeah....they reallllllly dropped the ball on showing viewers what is going on. You will enjoy the books.

[@davidkingyogato1097]

My non reader friend are confused and don't feel engaged with the characters, which saddens me

[@Nepthu]

The books aren't perfect either. The story becomes verbose, so buy patience by the pound.

[@mohammadadil456]

Same here.

[@superalatreon1]

As a book reader watching Season 1 I kept asking myself "Who is this really for?" because it felt so disjointed and messy it really didn't feel like they had a clear audience in mind, even accounting for the issues with Covid & Barney/Mat. Those unavoidable issues I understand and can't blame them for, but I still feel like there were larger issues with execution and delivery of this story. It didn't feel like it was for the book fans, with some of the baffling changes they made, but it also doesn't feel like it's for a wider audience who has not read the books, because it doesn't explain things well and often seemingly expects you to understand things that only book readers could. One of the clearest examples of this is at the end of Episode 8 when Moiraine and Lan are considering the broken cuendillar. We have had no prior mention or explanation of what that is or its significance, sure Lan says heartstone normally can't be broken, but when Moiraine says it means this wasn't the last battle, how are non-book readers supposed to interpret that??? How could they understand or draw any meaningful conclusions between broken cuendillar and this not being the last battle? It feels like an excuse to tell the audience that the story isn't over, rather than any meaningful revelation or realization of events. Only book readers would understand, and even then it still isn't properly explained. The two main story changes i didn't like were giving Perrin a wife only to kill her off immediately for the sake of his character arc, which is pretty much "fridging" and is certainly not a good example of the gender equality themes this show did relatively well. The other was making it seem like any of the Emond's Field 5 could be the Dragon, when the whole point of not wanting to be the dragon is that only males could suffer such a fate, inevitably going mad and killing their loved ones. It's not sexist to say only men can be the dragon, it's foundational to the lore that the male half of the One Power is tainted by the Dark One. It's something you DON'T want to be, which compliments the themes Robert Jordan had in mind of writing simple country folk who really just wanted nothing to do with prophecies or monsters or saving the world. But, it doesn't seem to work well for the non-book readers either, as they failed to properly communicate the rules of the One Power, failed to properly communicate some of the lore like the dangers of the forsaken and didn't SHOW us how badly things ended for the prev Dragon Lews. I think they made a terrible mistake by omitting the first book's intro with Lews, that scene isn't perfect but it does establish some very important things, like actually SHOWING the dragon had gone mad and killed his family, SHOWING that Ba'alzamon was an intelligent and powerful villain, and SHOWING the scope of the One Power when Lews creates Dragonmount and breaks the world. It's so much more impactful to see these things than it is to just hear about them, so it sucks that all non-book readers got was a silent spectre of Ba'alzamon who only gets to speak in the final episode, and we're only told in words that the last dragon broke the world, and the much weaker cold open for Episode 1. Plus we're only told in passing the strong connection between the dragon and Dragonmount. The book's intro really establishes the concept of souls being reborn, the fact Lews died creating dragonmount and thus the next dragon would be born on the slopes of that same mountain. But the show doesn't really explain this well or go into it much. I'm sorry for how long this comment has become, I'm just overall frustrated with the lack of communication and consistency the show presents. So many book fans are disappointed and the non-book fans i know are mostly confused and "meh" about the show. Which is a damn shame.

[@brednbudr2406]

Don't be sorry. That was a great opinion, and honestly covered some things I hadn't thought about. You're much kinder and forgiving to the writers than I am. I was a book fan since I was a kid so the show went from infuriating to just a dead-inside boring. Made myself finish it though, and wish I hadn't. I also have several none book reading friends who stopped watching or said they aren't bothering with s2, as it's a confusing mess. Some of them are reading the books now, and loving them. So atleast there's that. Lol Imagine if they actually tried to slightly adapt the book's content.

[@SerenitySong6]

As a nonbook reader, I'm learning new things just from reading this comment.

[@kathosim501]

I agree- I’ve been saying that too. They aren’t satisfying book readers because they are butchering so much of the story… but they aren’t helping non-readers because they aren’t explaining a damn thing. Really disappointed in this.

[@GnarledStaff]

They really messed up by not opening with the books prologue. That was literally the hook that made me want to read the rest of the series. It also sets up so many things that come into play throughout the series.

[@nickacton8004]

In my opinion it's writers thinking they can do it better than the author. No respect for the source or author and too much vanity. Witcher is an example. Look how much praise and homage CD project red gave the source material compared to how many frivolous changes are made in these two shows

[@elizaheathen]

*Of the all the Emonds Field five done dirty in this show (Egwene/Perrin), Rand was absolutely fucked over* The show's insistence on the mystery of the Dragon resulted in no one (literally no one) caring about the protagonist of the entire series. Imagine if LOTR focused on the elves for three movies and then we were expected to care about a tiny humanish thing dropping a ring in some lava

[@JB-og8we]

Yeah, it's obvious they are going to crush the stories of the boys because god knows you can't have a TV show or movie in 2021 with the lead characters being men that save the world!

[@spectre0536]

That's what happens when you have only the women of the Emonds Field 5 be the only ones to actually fight anything.

[@Phoboskomboa]

@@spectre0536 Not true! Perrin fought his wife and kicked her ass.

[@voldy18]

I beg to differ. I stan show!Rand. Thinking that show!Rand is a "wuss" is peak toxic masculinity.

[@Phoboskomboa]

@@voldy18 these are people complaining about women having agency and power in a fantasy series about "what if women had agency and power?" Of COURSE they're going to be freebasing toxic masculinity.

[@patrickdavies9790]

I understand Rafe's misgivings about only being given 10 episodes and his reasoning that that was the reason for the poor pacing and structure. But at the same time it's just not a good enough excuse. You're given 8 episodes and 10 million dollars for each one, I know it's two less than you would have liked, but you HAVE to make them count. We are currently in the golden age of television and you have to prove to yourself that your show can stand up to the big hitters we have nowadays. Ask yourself this Rafe, if you know episodes are getting cut, do you need an episode about Lan's buddy taking his own life? Do you REALLY need an episode about Moiraine ambling about the tower doing nothing until she sleeps with her girlfriend? Oh gee, I don't know, WHY NOT JUST ADAPT THE ESSENTIAL WORLD BUILDING AND CHARACTER MOMENTS THAT WERE ACTUALLY IN THE BOOKS???

[@gorilladisco9108]

But .. but .. the book is not woke. （￣へ￣）

[@Asschen-Sukar]

Omg this. So much this.

[@rhodie9338]

YES. Having read EotW, it's clear that 8 episodes was too few to adapt it properly. However, if I'd only ever seen the show, I'd believe that they actually only wrote a 6 episode series and Amazon asked for 2 more at the eleventh hour. There was just so much needless filler that was both nonessential to the plot and nonengaging for the viewer. Easily my biggest fantasy letdown since GoT.

[@winxclubflora8446]

@@rhodie9338 honestly he didnt even follow like one episode of the book.what would he have done with two more episodes? Destroy further.....i mean harry potter was a good adaptation with only one hour movies( meaning nearly one episode)

[@Argosh]

Rafe has lost any respect he ever achieved by lying to everyone. He just swallowed the coolaid and participated in the utter destruction of one of the greatest Fantasy Stories of our time.

[@AndreS-jc7vs]

I saw the first 3 episodes and was like "this is so mediocre, I wonder how good the source material is", so I started reading the books and am now mid-way through The Shadow Rising (book 4) and I am loving it! Still watched to episode 5 but couldnt watch more than that. If I, a brand new reader of this series started to get annoyed and sad at the changes, I can´t even think what some older fans might have felt. Weak adaptation and with so much potencial, especially with that cast. Still Im glad it brought me to read the books, I am loving them a lot.

[@Chabooki]

Can confirm, all of my hype around seeing certain scenes play out have been dashed because guess what, Rafe decided to change or not include 80% of the source material! Like, what?! Why? Very disappointing when the source material is what makes this series great. There's adapting a book for film and making certain changes and then theres, this. Anyways super glad you picked up the books! Crazy how good they are after watching the show right? If you start to feel the "Slog" don't forget that the last four books are some of the most exciting fiction ever written, imo.

[@hoozle]

Welcome! One of us! One of us!

[@TheZenBullet]

Best case scenario

[@neiltaylor513]

Same here, though I only started this week and are 65% through the 1st book. So tempted to google if "thom" is really dead

[@1lobster]

They hit you with the diversity too early in the show. The two rivers should be a homogenous backwater (not necessarily white. A black backwater would be just as compelling, and it would make the Celtic looking Rand al’Thor just as out of place as he should have been.) And it would also make for good set dressing. The people of this country look at this way and the people of that country look that way. Just like our world was back in the Middle Ages. And before you hit me with “muh braking of the world” 3000 years is a long enough time for people to mingle, and for natural selection to select for different physical features depending on environmental pressures. Maybe everyone in the two rivers should be mixed race. But they should be homogeneously mixed. Latino looking.

[@grayavatar9766]

I feel people are making too many excuses for this show. Just watched second season of The Witcher which had similar budget and similar covid conditions. It has made WoT production seem like amateur hour. Now Amazon is throwing more money at season 2 expecting to fix all the problems.

[@johnnyfitzlive]

That's the thing. Regardless of of Covid issues or Episode count, this show was given a massive budget that (in my opinion) was squandered by the creators. I don't have confidence that extra episodes would have fixed all that much when what we do see is just so sub-par, time and time again. But don't worry, I'm sure there will be plenty more areal establishing shots to convey epic scope.

[@samuelrussell5760]

Agree completely. It's true that the first episode covers a lot of (too much?) ground and the last episode has so much to tie up with no foundation or buildup that it feels very rushed and undeserved. Both of these episodes needed more screen time to really get to where they needed to go. But we can't ignore that there are six other episodes that at times feel really slow and spend lots of time languishing in pointless dead ends that don't develop the main characters or the main plot and aren't even in the book. I think a big part of the problem is that the episodes have a bunch of different directors (4) and writers (7). This should have been approached as a single production and divided into episodes during editing. It should not be eight productions that try to fit together at the end. For reference, the Lord of the Rings books are almost 400 pages longer than The Eye of the World and the theatrical version of the movies has a total run time a little over nine hours. The total run time of season 1 is almost 8 hours. They weren't one hour away from having Lord of the Rings quality character development and story telling. They botched this badly. Saying that they needed more run time is like not going to class all semester and saying you don't have enough time to study as you cram for the final the night before. You had plenty of time. You just wasted most of it.

[@MrHoll87]

And just think, this same company is throwing massive amounts at a Lord of the Rings show... It's going to be a disaster.

[@eldadvg]

This show is horrible

[@samuelrussell5760]

@john park, Considering how badly they screwed up in spite of having great source material, I’d have to be mentally disabled to believe they would achieve something above the level of drivel, considering the Middle Earth has very little source materiel to pull from. Of course, there is a well developed world, but the characters and story are very surface level.

[@UltimateAmplify]

The main problem with the show, which will continue escalating, is that Rafe just doesn't have the skills to write a story or character arcs. The writing for this season was choked with tropes, imposed ideology, and poor narrative/character decisions. I convinced a number of people who never read the books to watch the show, and by the end they really loved Egwene, Nynaeve and Moiraine but hated/didn't care for Rand, Mat and Perrin or understand any of what was going on. It shows that he can't/or won't balance writing quality development for both male and female characters, which is pretty important considering the story literally depends on both sides being developed and competent. They made the characters older so they could write "more mature themes" but never introduced anything they couldn't do with the original ages, they gave Perrin a wife so they could outwardly express his inner turmoil but only discussed it briefly once and Perrin only had about three lines in the conversation - and then they ended the arc with it being suggested he only married her because Egwene loved Rand, they focused more on Moiraine to provide a consistent anchor for the progression but the narration and world building became schewed towards exposition around the Aes Sedai and Warders at the expense of every other plot and bit of world building, they kept showing the dragon's tear but never explained it, they made Lewis Therin purely egotistical rather than someone desperate to save a world on the verge of destruction, rather than elevating the female characters by improving their overall interactions they just flipped gender tropes. Everyone is hoping season 2 will be better, but a bad writer is a bad writer. Until Amazon brings in someone who knows what they're doing the show is doomed to fail and fall into obscurity.

[@destinyquestgame]

He doesn’t care. After reading his comments post episode 8 it’s clear he is a true Rian Johnson. He’s out to troll fans. We’ll see how long that works out…

[@urakibakabi7866]

I'm pretty sure it won't get any better and i can't imagine at all that the tv show will ever be finished. They already made a 2 season, which was way too enthusiastic to me. When the second season will have the same quality as the first one, then i think they have to cancel it on the long run.

[@dreamer2260]

Sadly I think you are right.

[@nilsbylander]

Nothing points towards a better s2 sadly

[@noct8225]

it's a shame because some of the actors and actresses are pretty good, and seeing the characters when you've read so much about them is so exciting but ultimately it's a very poor rendition and even factoring in that realistically they will have to cut content to put it into a tv format - it still sucks :(.

[@onestepcloser5925]

After the anti-climatic season finale, I decided to use my audible credits to get the first book. The story is a sweeping, tense epic on the lines of LOTR. They watered it down so much! I'm now on 2nd book and have no plans to watch this show again.

[@danijelb.3384]

Good for you.

[@TheSleepLes]

Good on you! I was hoping for better too. They took too many shortcuts and changed too much. Still love the books though.

[@garyodom6574]

Audible is far superior to the TV show.

[@MetalCharlo]

You're goddamn right.

[@_Stormfather]

You're in for one hell of a ride

[@Vialle1014]

“It’s dramatic but it fails to deliver anything of substance”. Yep - that’s about the best description for the 1st season I’ve heard

[@grjoseph]

I’m in complete agreement with your synopsis. It started for me with the reference to Lews Therin as the Dragon Reborn when we know he was the original Dragon, and continued with “ let’s round up a few “wilders”, a couple untrained women who had potential for great power and someone with a courtesy ring from the Tower and we can defeat a Trolloc Army “. Toss in Nynaeve’s death and resurrection, and you have a terrible ending to a disappointing season, and I’m one who was pretty positive for most of the season. Let’s hope that they can recover next season!

[@maxroy5246]

They can’t

[@Mechinwisdom]

Yeah, I have a LOT of negative things to say about this series and often non-book readers or apologists who rate this show 10/10 tell me to stop watching. I will not stop watching, or calling out BS, because I have hope. I have hope that all of this is going somewhere and that someone, somewhere has the best interests of Robert Jordan's life work at heart. It is sometimes disappointing to be an optimist, especially with this season, but there is still a lot of material to cover and Rafe Judkins could possibly die of covid. (whistles song from "Life of Brian")

[@bryansweeney3077]

I'm fine with calling Lews Therin the 'Dragon Reborn', since that seems like a pretty reasonable simplification to make (calling all of Rand's past lives the 'Dragon Reborn' rather than Rand and Lews having a title and all the past lives not having one), but I'm in total agreement with your other points. The channeling in the last episode makes the magic system seem too Harry Potterish where anyone can do anything at any time, rather than the rule-bound system described in the books. I hope they work on rectifying that in Season 2

[@LuckyDragon289]

I get from a marketing perspective, it makes sense to have Moiraine (& Lan) be your series leads, because Rosamind Pike is your top-billed actor. HOWEVER, I think that because they centered around Moiraine for like 3 episodes (her relationships, Warder stuff, and Aes Sedai politics), that really hurt Rand, Mat, and Perrin's development. I thought Episode 5 (Stepin's arc) was great as a standalone episode, but it should have been pushed to a later season because setting up that lore didn't have much of an impact by the end of the season. Same with Siuan; I think her actor was fantastic, but it was a Aes Sedai-centric episode that would've been better off in Season 2 because we lose out on so much foundational character development for the EF5. And the multiple fake-out deaths, from Episode 4 (fine) to THREE in Episode 8 was really tiresome. For the Tarwin's Gap scene, why not have Amalysa and the two unnamed women burn out, but Nynaeve and Egwene survive because they're so much stronger? Or instead just have Egwene fall unconscious and Nynaeve heal her, because HEALING IS NYNAEVE'S SCHTICK, NOT EGWENE'S. Also, fake-killing Loial seemed pointless, ESPECIALLY if he was supposedly stabbed with the Shadar Logoth dagger (IDK if it was clearly shown that Fain has the dagger) Another major miss for S1 was the failure to establish why we should care about the Dragon Reborn and why is he considered such a dangerous threat to the world. We should've seen LTT at the Breaking (e.g., creation of Dragonmount) as an example of his power, or Rand showing up at Tarwin's Gap at the last minute to help the female channelers wipe out the Trolloc forces. If 5 linked, untrained women could take out thousands of Trollocs, that really messes with the scaling of the One Power. Maybe they wanted to avoid the "male saviour" trope, but they could've worked around it. Furthermore, at the end of EOTW, Rand's showdown with Ishy & at TG is his first public appearance. In the show, Moiraine lets him slip away, and the world is none the wiser that the Dragon is Reborn. A 6/10 is what I would give this season, as well. Before Ep8, I'd maybe have given it a 7 or 7.5/10, but the finale was a real letdown for me, which dragged down my view of the season as a whole.

[@hellolimitless9432]

To be honest, I think the showrunner should have never got a hand at a show where the lead is male because you can see that’s where all the problems is coming from. Rafe Judkins made it very clear at numerous occasions that he was a feminist and that the female characters were going to have more spotlight. That’s the reason why egwene and nynaeve had scenes that belonged to Rand and the male trio had surface-level arc. I acknowledge Rosamund Pike incredible talent but for me she didn’t steal the show as she looked awkward in most scenes probably because she had to pretend she had powers and it might a first for her. It’s Barney Harris who in my eyes was shining during this season even if like I said, we didn’t see enough of him. As you might already know, he is not coming back for season 2 and I am waiting to see the new actor first but he will have big shoes to fill. Barney was really the best part of the show and it’s gone….

[@im1085]

@@hellolimitless9432 Its so weird to give the girls more spotlight in a series where the girls are already so strong and prominent

[@hellolimitless9432]

@@im1085 Exactly, Wheel of time is one of the only novel series where there is an equality between the men and the women. Why the need to change that !

[@alananimus9145]

The thing is things are well off the tracks now. I actually think we book fans are responsible for the show this season turning out the way it did. Things are about to get WAY different. We have been saying that we are thinking of this as a new turning but most of us haven't really internalized that yet. Be'lal, Rahvin, Semirhage, Aran'gar were not there fore the war of power which means the age of legends was different, the war of power was different and it explains why things are different in the show. At this point anything could happen at any time. There are only 9 Forsaken because 4 of them literally don't exist anymore. They are just gone. Burned out of the power by the one power. Strap in because this is going to be a wild ride my friend.

[@EB-bl6cc]

@ your first paragraph Lucky, as someone who was somewhat excited for the show but hasn't read the books (I typically enjoy fantasy but never took the Wheel of Time plunge). I found three of "the five" to be unlikeable (Nynaeve and Perrin being the exceptions). And I think that's probably due to what you're saying.. lack of development. I did enjoy watching Moiraine but maybe it hurt the show overall

[@thomaswallace2346]

Late to the Party, but here are the reasons Season 1 completely bombed: 1. Season 1 completely ignores logical consistency in its world building which is a huge no-no in fantasy if you want to succeed. The pursuit of making the dragon reborn a mystery (for whatever reason) forces everything from little explanation of the world and rules itself, to downright oath breaking by Aes Sedai. 2. Moraine's character is broken all around. She either breaks the 3 oaths by suggesting the dragon could be female, or she's a complete idiot to how the world works. The latter being far worse as it makes all Aes Sedai women look stupid if so, especially for purposely hunting down men who can channel when they have no clue why. More so by the end of Season 1 where for no reason established she rushes off to the Eye...WHY??? The seals aren't weathering!! Rand breaks the Seal (or seems too). She gets herself exiled, stilled, and routinely flat lies, making for the most unrespectable character by season's end. Such a shame. 3. The decision to remove Camelyn, and go to Tar Valon instead, forces a complete redesign of plot devices to get everyone to the Borderlands/Eye of the World. This is a domino effect the writers never recover from, cascading into a poorly executed narrative. This isn't rocket science, it could still have been done, but the sudden mentions of having to go to the Eye without any reason makes Moraine look like a reckless fool and idiot. All they had to do was discover a broken seal along the way as it happens in the book to suggest the Eye was weakening!! 4. Moraine and Siuan's relationship looks like a 13 year old horny boy wrote the script. 5. The complete disregard for the books good pacing on power scaling and limitations. Egwene resurrecting Nynaeve, out healing the talented healer, leaves them no where to go. They've wrecked both characters in one move. 6. Lack of Forsaken battle at Eye in exchange for a Trolloc nuke fest and Horn theft (again no exposition) was a dumb way to end the season. Worse, Moraine stilled. But maybe deservingly so after this travesty. Honorable mention: Perrin's wife. I get you want to make him struggle with killing an innocent for the Way narrative. By why not just an innocent townsperson or friend (or Master Luhan) in the battle? There's no connection to this person, no feelings for her from the audience is established. The movie "Up" managed to give you in 10 minutes a sob story on the death of a character. It can entirely be done. But this was poorly designed and executed. I had held out all season, hoping for some good resolution and bringing some of these changes together. Unfortunately, I feel like Mat in Episode 6...time to get away from this.

[@Raximus3000]

They could have shown Perrin to display berserker traits, ergo getting into an uncotrolable killing spree(like in the books) rather than a traumatic event that should have caused him to become a tinker. You have to be really fucked up to think killing your wife is smth you can just get over in any sensible amount of time. It is like every choice they made was for the worse!

[@AlanDantes76]

I don't think it was great either, but to say it "bombed" is highly inaccurate. As for Amazon shows, it's one of the most popular in the last couple of years.

[@cernunnos8344]

This is what happens when you woke-ify a story to push forward a political agenda instead of trying to make a good show, and it's sad that even harcore fans of the books won't acknowledge it

[@Raximus3000]

@@cernunnos8344 Are you kidding me, those are the ones who will not aknowledge it!!!

[@cernunnos8344]

@@Raximus3000 that's... exactly what I'm saying

[@Hegataro]

Their lack of properly communicating how the One Power works has turned it from being a rather Hard Magic system in the books to being seemingly one of the softest in the show.

[@mateo0123]

this, the fact that egwene was able to cure saidar burnout while being unable to throw a proper fireball is absolutely ridiculous even when you take into account the "rediscovering old weaves" thing going on in the books. the Power does whatever the plot needs and the _how_ does not matter at all

[@davidmendrei6228]

read book 1 again and you will see its not explained at all either......

[@archangelmichael3902]

@@davidmendrei6228 stop making excuses, Rafe. While adapting 14 books long story, it's good to read more then one.

[@GraendalGMS]

What are you talking about? Neither nynaeve nor egwene actively channel in the first book and when Rand does he does it the way he does for the first few books - by having "muscle memory" of his past life as Lews Therin kick in. Ofcourse the way the one power works would not be explained, since the only one who does understand it is Moiraine and she doesn't waste time explaining. We get to learn more about it as the girls actually start learning. I agree that the thing with Rand can take a bit off the hard magic feeling, however to excuse the show for not explaining or maintaining hard magic status because "book one doesn't explain it" is beyond ridiculous. They have the full source material, should know how important it is and how it works, they just choose to not give a fck and about it and preffer to insert bs drama like sad suicidal warder or perrin egwene rand love drama for some disgusting reason.

[@davidmendrei6228]

@@archangelmichael3902 i didn't defending him....

[@shawnbonneau5731]

Very interesting that Daniel's big fear was that it would be too close to Game of Thrones. I was far more concerned that it would be too close to Chronicles of Shannara or Legend of the Seeker, or any CW show.

[@joshuatabor8755]

Theu Tried for Thrones and landed among Shannara for me. I cannot believe how much they tried to limit Rands character. I won't be watching a season 2

[@ferdia78]

Totally agree with you, all those shows where utter rubbish and butchered the source material.

[@coalescententity6651]

The editing half the time sure feels like a CW show though.

[@lenanana8]

I was also thinking throughout this season that it was similar to Shannara!

[@anthonyferguson9282]

I think it was the third or fourth episode of seeker that I'd had enough. The one where they created a cave monster that ate the girls brother for no reason, after having already butchered several key beginning points. Crazy old hermit in the forest, what's her name bringing the book he'd spend his childhood literally memorizing. It was just too much.

[@Lttlemoi]

If they had more episodes, they would just have more pointless filler. They had plenty of time to develop the core characters, but instead they chose to do an entire warder subplot, a too early introduction of Siuan, Liandrin and the rest of the the aes sedai that also made them visit Tar Valon instead of Caemlyn, with all the narrative consequences that entails... They clearly had trouble introducing so much lore, even failed spectacularly in some areas, but also wrote themselves in a corner by introducing the Aes Sedai politics. If you ask me, that introduction should have been delayed to the second season. Rand's background should have been kept a mystery. The five Emonds Fielders are put into a world they don't actually know, use that to also expose the audience to the world!

[@Mosisli]

Indeed. One would think the episodes delivered would already contain the parts considered most important. Would more episodes really have presented something crucial to the audience or an extended cut of the Siuan and Moiraine expedition to Love Island? Since the show runner can not properly leverage the resources already allocated it would seem the right call not to give him any more episodes. In fact it would be even better to not give him another season.

[@silvafangtv]

they pushed it forward because "this is a matriarchal society haha see twitter ? give us likes women strong yay" thats the only reason I can see why they have dumbed down the men and made all the women the main characters whereas in the book both sexes had great arcs

[@JP-zb3yb]

I saw Rafe talk about it in an interview. They have to establish these things called standing sets or something, aka sets that they keep returning to and stuff. He needed to do make and have at least one, and he chose the white tower since its a location we see a lot of in the series and book 1 itself is all traveling. The problem is, white tower we never actually see in book 1. But he had to use the budget to build it now, and thus justify building it by using it in s1. From there, the change from meetup in camelyn to tar valon happened. But that still wasnt enough. So then the subplots of the warder stuff and the siuan stuff was put in there, so they could say they used this set the most, aka in 2 out of the 8 episodes. From there, the whole white tower plots make sense as to why they did it, and it can have payoff in later seasons. But for season 1 itself it was hurt tremendously. I hope that letting season 1 take the blow in writing will give them the room they need to make the latter seasons smoother as far as these sets go.

[@georgeeast5502]

@@silvafangtv Agreed. The two most annoying ones for me are in the last episode. What they did to Agelmar and his sister, and the LTT flashback. In the books, Agelmar is a literal Great General, takes the Shadow seriously, and a badass, and his sister is a wimp who gets easily manipulated by Liandrin. Then in the show they make Agelmar an idiot who doesn't see the Shadow as a threat and gets killed stupidly, and his sister a practical Aes Sedai who is 'so much smarter' that Agelmar has to apologize for being 'wrong'. WHY?! For the unbelievably stupid LTT flashback, they first make Latra the Tamyrlin seat instead of Lews, when she was just a prominent Aes Sedai and Lews Therin was literally the GOAT in the books. Then they have her be 'in the right' in the argument about sealing the Dark One. Despite the fact that it had to be done, and if Latra's plan had been followed, they would have all died to the Shadow from waiting with their thumbs up their asses. Yet there was no mention of the War of Power. THE LITERAL WAR OF POWER, the whole reason the world collapsed, the Dark One broke free, the Forsaken appeared, and the catalyst for the series itself, WAS NOT MENTIONED. AT ALL. Instead it focused on 'Lews Therin is doing something prideful and foolish' and 'the female Aes Sedai are smart and tell him not to'(despite the fact that they have no plan at all). I don't care about some PC agenda stuff, as long as it doesn't affect the series, but this just makes it hopeless. They can't allow even one man, the smartest, most skilled and powerful man in the world(Lews Therin), to even appear intelligent for a second. They can't admit that he alone saved the world itself, and instead focus on his screw up and 'arrogance'. Sorry for the rant, but the most grating thing is these are relatively minor changes, but they affect the lore and series so much, and for no reason. JUST ADAPT THE BOOKS DAMNIT!

[@Lttlemoi]

@@JP-zb3yb Comparing that explanation to Game of Thrones's first season budget of 50 to 60 million USD, and the bad set design and filming quality we get here, I have to wonder where that 90 million USD budget really went to and if there really wasn't an option to do the story properly. It's not like we would actually get to see a lot of Caemlyn anyway, just a generic tavern interior, a few streets, a walled garden (though they could cut introducing Elayne), a far-away shot of some generic palace gate with central square and a random basement.

[@jrnqproductions9939]

I think 6/10 is a very gentle and generous assessment. Some amazing moments, thrown away by an extremely weak final episode which really left me wondering why I bothered putting up with their often unfathomable changes to the book story.

[@breezy3392]

I watched the show before reading the book and I gave it a lesser score than that. It wasn't just the finale that I found weak

[@thewaterwarrior9817]

I gave it a 5

[@listonrice5230]

6/10 borders on malpractice. The show was a horrid mess of characterization, world building, themes, pacing. What worked well? Good-enough acting? Unless a viewer wants some white noise on in the background while they do something else, this show is a waste of time.

[@johnbertram1537]

Maybe a 2/10

[@DaveD36]

Good attempt at a balanced review, your points about the editing and communication were spot on. However. I don't think they can claim not enough episodes when half the material was made up or dragged out. Why did they go to Tar Valon for two episodes - what did that achieve, other than to kill off a minor character and manufacture Moiriane's entirely superfluous expulsion ? Did we need a whole episode on Logain ? Of all the things that were and could have been cut, the Tuatha'an stay in ? I think if they'd had two more episodes, they'd have just created more lore-free nonsense.

[@Ganjalf_the_Green]

I loved logain episode and the speech about the Tinker's daughter, but yes, the fact that they didn't have enough episodes isn't a justification, because they wasted so much time

[@Marwolaeth01]

Agreed. Difficult to bitch and moan about not having two extra episodes when you waste an episode on a boring suicide/funeral plot.

[@ironmonkey1512]

@@Marwolaeth01 it would of also spared us the cheezy lez scene

[@jhkuhn]

That's where I'm at as well. They had two episodes (5 and 6) that they could have used to build up the relationships with the main protagonists but instead spent much of it on characters that were wholly unimportant to season one. 8 episodes was always going to be short, but even knowing that they decided to spend almost the entirety of 2 episodes on characters that didn't matter.

[@Finn-xw4vn]

I think 6 actually does a good job of introducing the white tower and seeing everything through Moirane's perspective while also introducing the warder bond.

[@jermainegrays]

I've only finished book one. At this point I'm halfway through the Great Hunt. I have two big issues with season 1: 1. Tom should've been introduced earlier. 2. We really needed more time with the five from the two rivers. There was so much time spent on world building stuff that was ok but not worth it to take the place of some of the fives development in my opinion. We didn't need episode with Logain and the aes sedai in the woods nor the stuff with the green aja that died and the warder who killed himself afterward. I feel like there were other ways to establish the bond between aes sedai and their warders without taking all that show time; all of which could have given us more development with the actual protagonists.

[@bluelight17]

Thom is such an important character for Rand and Mat, i was sad he was only in for a little more than an episode.

[@ironmonkey1512]

I just finished the first three books and think that their choice of changes don't make much sense. Somehow they made a complex story more complex and less cohesive.

[@ironmonkey1512]

I just finished the first three books and think that their choice of changes don't make much sense. Somehow they made a complex story more complex and less cohesive.

[@ParchedGoddess]

@@ironmonkey1512 They're trying to foreshadow stuff from the end of the series, Rand`s confrontation at the Eye (in the show) heavily resembles something in Book 14; not going to spoil it, no worries. 1st season was "clunky", hopefully they'll hit their stride next season... I really want to like this.

[@kityhawk2000]

@@bluelight17 maybe this isn't such a big deal to some other people but I also hated that Thom stole their money and never gave it back just seemed totally out of character and made him seem like an a-hole

[@erelde_]

My own frustration is that I've seen movies of 130 minutes denser with lore, emotion, acting, travelling than the last 2 episodes. Or in fact the whole 8 episodes. I don't think this adaption will touch on the *"real"* dream world. I think they'll just skip that.

[@randomdude3620]

Yeah, contrast what we saw in season 1 with all 3 LOTR movies, which have a run time of 9.5 hours all together, and the contrast in world building, character development and story progression between the two fantasy properties is stark.

[@menghao737]

If they totally skip Tel'Aran'Rhiod, then I will be absolutely done with the series. It's a huge deal in the story and one of my favorite things about WoT, one of the things I've been looking forward too most about the show as the visual details described in the books could look incredible on screen, things flickering into and out of existence, doors and drawers opening and closing when you look away, people's clothes changing depending on their thoughts and mood, rapid changes in scenery, nightmare action sequences, the fighting using Tel'Aran'Rhiod as both the battlefield and the weapon. Maybe you can take Tel'Aran'Rhiod out of WoT and still call it WoT, but why would you want too!

[@erelde_]

@@menghao737 I agree. I also think from what they showed of dreaming in season 1, they won't do any of those *awe-some* things.

[@gebs123]

@@menghao737 Everything that you mentioned about Tel'aran'rhiod goes in the "Too expensive" pile. That pile has been getting bigger every episode. 10 Episodes? "Too expensive." Warder Cloaks? "Too expensive." Ageless Faces? "Too expensive." Sets for both Shadar Logath and Caemlyn? "Too expensive." Good CGI for Trollocs? "Too expensive." Tel'aran'rhiod, with it's changing of clothes and background objects? "Too expensive."

[@hapablap2088]

LotR was about 9 hours, this was about 7.5. Rafe should be getting people coffee.

[@ari1758]

And Mat would NEVER leave his friends, I just know that. He’s a good person. A reluctant hero. But he’s a good guy.

[@brooklynsadler2292]

Actually it's quite the opposite throughout the books he does everything he can to get away from then and men that can channel but ends up turning a warband because he's so lucky and continually wins battles he tried to escape from

[@doctorspectator8063]

@@brooklynsadler2292 the way it’s described in the books actually has me lean more towards what Ari said. Yes his internal monologue is all about getting away from it all, but because he’s a fundamentally good and caring person, he remains. The best example was the battle outside Cairhien and the beginnings of his band as you mentioned. He wanted to dip, but he saw an ambush so just had to warn them cause that’s no big deal. Oh but they’re incompetent so he’d help them organize, that’ll be fine. Then after taking small step after small step, because fundamentally he cares, he suddenly became the leader of the band. His internal monologue is a funny contradiction that also works to add some depth, but his actions have repeatedly shown that he won’t abandon his friends, even if on some level he wants to

[@danielmennel4565]

@@brooklynsadler2292 It's not until book 5 Matt tries to leave because he doesn't want to be around to watch one of his best friends go mad and kill everyone he cares for. Matt ends up with an army because as he's trying to get away he runs in to soldiers that need help and he leads them to victory.

[@tristanlanphere7736]

in the books for sure

[@benjo_5]

Except he DID leave and abandon his friends, or at least he tried to. Mat is a horrible character throughout the book series. He is a complete narcissist, and if he wasn't targeted by the Dark One in the beginning, he could have very easily been a high ranking leader among the Darkfriends. Everyone who thinks he's a "good guy" is remembering what happened though rose colored lens. Rand was loyal and supported Mat while he had the dagger, and when Rand needed support, did Mat have ANY empathy or compassion considering he himself just went through a similar "evil" experience? No, he told Rand to stay as far away as possible, and said "well, we were friends, but now I think you're a total monster so see ya....You understand of course, I have no choice, so no offense"

[@saysHotdogs]

I just finished the first book and I have no idea why they’d deviate so much from it. Like had they done it with game of thrones, it would have never gotten off of the ground.

[@zacschinella6580]

As someone who's read the series this sums up my feelings toward season 1. The context in which Jordan gives readers is granular down to the dew on a blade of grass on a cold morning in a vast meadow (

[@Smk42217]

I can see them making changes because 15 books is a lot

[@joeblazer3429]

@@Smk42217 That would be completely understandable if they were just cutting out scenes or trying to compress stuff. But not only did they cut out scenes, they also replaced them with brand new scenes of their own devising. Whether for political reasons or because they have a lack of faith in the source material, I couldn't tell you

[@fatetestarossa2774]

INDEED

[@fatetestarossa2774]

@@joeblazer3429 WELL SAID and i may add that political reasons play a HUGE hand in this

[@Macapta]

I think it could benefit by using that “wind” motif at the start of each book to give a general layout of the land and character/places relative distance from each other.

[@damionwhitehead1165]

They don't want to copy GoTs theme of showing the map before each episode, but I agree, that would be a great way to do it.

[@kopicat2429]

@@damionwhitehead1165 But like all other fantasy shows coming, they want it to be a GoT 2.0 in all other aspects. Except the one aspect that might make the rules and lore more clear. A big reason for making it a darker world(like making Mats family life shit) then the books is because of wanting to be more like GoT. Brandon himself said that.

[@alaska4939]

Yes. That would have good. I honestly thought that is what they were going to do at least for the openings of the first episodes of the seasons and at the endings of the seasons.

[@Telkor]

They need to develope like some sort of in episode map. Lol. So one can just click a button and see where the characters currently are. Don't know if that would be beneficial, but the series needs a map somehow.

[@Kolaris8472]

I was so disappointed that was relegated to an outro voiceover in episode 1. Every time I read those sequences I could imagine them put on screen.

[@JoshuaWilliams-xt5cb]

"possible Spoiler" There is a super important moment further on in the books where Rand attempts to revive a child with the One Power, and he learns the hard way that it is impossible. Its a moment i remember very clearly and it makes a huge definition of how the power works. They almost took that away with the Egwene healing Nynaeve.

[@bluelight17]

I loved that scene, it was absolutely heartbreaking. All that power and he couldn't do anything for that little girl. I really wanted to see it in the show, but honestly i doubt it would have the same impact now.

[@spunkush]

But wouldn't it be badass if Egwene can resurrect anyone with her base raw power?! She's like Rey, everyone loves Rey.

[@nathanmorgan3647]

@@spunkush lmfao

[@alexandru.onofrei77]

And he learns not to try it on Mat at a certain point :P !Spoiler! I think Egwene reverts balefire effect in the last book - BUT THAT IS THE LAST BOOK, not the first season :((((

[@jhkuhn]

And that is why that Egwene scene was such a head slap moment for me. I read that book over 20 years ago and that scene is one that sticks in my mind. One of the most dramatic in the entire series, and Rafe et al have already destroyed that moment in season 1. Even if Nyn wasn't supposed to be dead, IT IS A VISUAL MEDIUM, SHOW THAT SHE ISN'T DEAD. It's so infuriating because it's something that didn't have to happen and NOBODY cared. As with practically all their changes, the scene isn't emotional because there's no connection. They haven't built up anything for that scene to work so it's just more cheap invented drama.

[@antarchy1]

As either a TV show or a telling of the story a 6/10 is way too generous. You said they needed more episodes, no, they need to stick to the books. We had 2 episodes in the middle of the season that served no other purpose than getting Moiraine Siuan in bed. Moiraine was kind of asexual in the books. She was married to her quest. I just don't understand the need for that. It wasted time they could have spent in world and character development. Is there even a male side of the power? Rand using Moiraine's Ter Angreal would suggest there isn't. This wasn't the work of a group of people who understood or loved the books.

[@Gunleaver]

This was the work of a group of fans, who are TOO much into their fandom. Wheel of Time fandom is very divided, with fans of certain characters, plotlines and stories, arguing with fans of other stuff. When the series was still coming out, there were fans who were rabid devotees of the magic system, and had whole webpages dedicated to figuring out how strong each channeler is and where they rank against each other. Other fans liked the military or politics. Some fans loved Aes Sedai and saw them as the heroes of the story and others saw them as the villains. Aes Sedai fans could also argue about which Ajah was better, or who was right or wrong in the Tower's internal conflicts, who was right or wrong in conflicts with the Asha'man, which channeling group was the best, and so on. The problem with the show and its producers is that they are writing this, not in Jordan's spirit of showing how everyone has a point, and saving the world is a joint endeavor, and how the world is flawed and failing which is why it needs a savior, but rather from the perspective of their favorite characters and aspects of the story. It's very plain that the people behind the show are HUGE fans of Egwene, Moiraine, Siuan and the Aes Sedai. They made the changes they did because they could not restrain themselves. They could not wait to show Tar Valon, Siuan and the other Aes Sedai, none of whom appear until book 2. They ship Moiraine and Siuan and so they made their affair contemporary, instead of a school days relationship both women moved on from. They cut Thom down to almost nothing because he's Moiraine's love interest in the books, and they don't like that. They took away from Nynaeve's stories, because in the early books, Nynaeve is sometimes in conflict with Egwene, and she has problems channeling, so she's boring. To them, the world of WoT is a playground for channelers, so the Children of the Light are despicable, and their whole depiction revolves around what they hate the Children, namely, their opposition to channeling. That's probably also why they showed the Seanchan as they do in the coda clip, what with the foreign, sinister words they shout, the superfluous gags on the damane (what's the Old Tongue phrase for "gagged ones"?) the Warcraft-2-Orc-like design of their ships, and the gratuitous tidal wave crushing a child. The fact that every single way in which the world of WoT is worse than the real world is due to the existence of channeling, so maybe there are reasons why people would see the appeal of the Children of the Light, that the Seanchan are responsible rulers and competent administrators, who strongly uphold the rule of law, and even their highest nobles have to follow the rules and be accountable - these don't sink into the Show producers, because they see things entirely through the lens of wannabe channelers. And because they are fans of Egwene, they have the story of the Children capturing her and Perrin change its focus from Perrin, layering on the guilt from his violence, to Egwene, making it a particular ordeal for her. Perrin's torture is solely about motivating Egwene and how badly Egwene feels about it. There is nothing in subsequent episodes about Perrin dealing with his captivity by the Children or his experience of torture. He's just a motivational tool for Egwene. Instead of Lan, Moiraine and Nynaeve all contributing to the rescue of Perrin & Egwene, as well as an implicit contribution from the wounded and not-present Elyas, the whole effort is Egwene's. She does all the important things, including freeing Perrin to provide a distraction and then extricating herself and stabbing Valda and single-handedly getting an incoherent and wounded Perrin to the White Tower for Healing, as well as recovering Valda's Aes Sedai ring trophy collection. Nynaeve's story recalling Egwene's bout of breakbone fever as a girl was about Nynaeve and her motivations and her first instance of channeling in the books. On the show, the focus of Nynaeve's story is Egwene's strength of will and determination and indestructible nature. They remove Nynaeve's channeling to make it all about Egwene willing herself to survive and recover. Even in Emond's Field, the focus of Egwene's early scenes is all on her and her trial. In the books, her own boyfriend does not notice her first arrival on the scene, because Nynaeve is the focus of everyone's attention. What's more, the books go out of their way to introduce Nynaeve as a formidable person, with a position of power and leadership, who is resented for her strength but also respected. She gets to demonstrate she knows what she's talking about with her medical treatment after the Trolloc attack and even people who resent her confrontational manner are forced to concede her abilities with Listening to the Wind. And it's made clear that the weather forecasting is an important skill for an agrarian community that lives off selling wool and crops. On the show, Nynaeve's position seems mostly ceremonial, and not one of leadership. Egwene's mother (sans her canonical gray hair, because of course there's no room for old women on the screen) takes more of a role in the leadership of the village than Nynaeve, whose job is pushing new adults into the river and washing the rocks of the sacred pool, to which absolutely no one else pays the slightest attention or lip service. She doesn't lead the prayers for the dead, as a Wisdom in the books would, and even though Nynaeve is present, it's Egwene's mom whose speech kicks off the Winternight celebrations. Nynaeve doesn't even get to treat the wounded of the village. She tackles Egwene to safety, is less effective than the late Mrs Aybarra in knife-fighting a Trolloc, and fails to save a wounded villager. We get to see Perrin & Layla protecting more people, Mat rescue his sisters, and Rand & his dad fight off a Trolloc. Nynaeve is yanked off-screen and dragged away by her braid while tending to her second casualty, after Moiraine kills the first Trolloc Nynaeve ineffectually fights. When the group are arguing in Fal Dara, Nynaeve is just pathetically telling them to stop in the background and no one listens to her. This all suggests they don't care much about Nynaeve or Perrin, and their priority is always going to be Egwene, just like Game of Thrones devolved into the Tyrion Fan Show. The problem is not that the showrunners are not fans, it's that they ARE huge fans, but are only interested in showing the things they are fans of.

[@grayavatar9766]

@@Gunleaver You may be right. This is worse

[@christianclark347]

@@Gunleaver I don't know about that. The director specifically said he got writers who had never read the books and even some who had tried to read the books but hated them. Doesn't really sound like "super-fans" to me. I get more of a Starship Troopers vibe from it. Like the writers had the plot conveyed to them secondhand by someone who talked to someone who read the books. They have access to a dramatis personae and the cliff notes, so they know the names and the key events. But it's all only skin-deep. None of the meaning is there. What they're doing with Egwene just feels like more of this "And she was the bestest evah!" schtick thats all too common lately (e.g. Rey). Everyone else must be brought down in order to raise up the chosen character. My time will be better employed just reading through the books again, I'm afraid.

[@Gunleaver]

@@christianclark347 Well, not so much the writers then, but the people making the decisions about character arca and plots. Whoever made those decisions, whoever knew enough about the source material to decide to depict it, I believe their problem is the are fans who are prioritizing their favorites over the story as a whole.

[@jeffreytsao5710]

Maybe they were working with just the spark notes version of the story

[@ShinteiKun]

My partner forbade me to talk during the show because I was screaming "THAT'S NOT HOW IT WAS IN BOOKS!" Personally, I'm very disappointed in a show, from all angles. This is not "the wheel of time" ... it's a "fidget spinner of few minutes". I give it 3/10... (those 3 points because not everything sucked)

[@20storiesunder]

That sounds very annoying xD

[@ShinteiKun]

@JustDev I know and I agree. Usually I don't talk during movies and shows, but this really annoys me... so I annoyed my partner in process.

[@ShinteiKun]

@@20storiesunder oh, I was... XD

[@20storiesunder]

@@ShinteiKun I'm exactly the same, I've been trained sufficiently to keep quiet but they'll get the occasional twitch xD

[@ShinteiKun]

@JustDev yes. for example, Nyneave isn't annoying like in the first 6 or 7 books. they removed ungodly amount of arguing amongst characters just because they don't communicate like normal human beings. they didn't make women angry all the time because men can't read their minds and men aren't as clueless as in the books.

[@wadebanner7546]

The last half of this season REALLY lost me, particularly the last episode which left a bad taste in my mouth. I have zero trust left in the show, and won’t be watching season 2 unless I hear it’s an absolutely massive step up. Frankly I’ll be shocked if the show isn’t canceled after season 2

[@firstlast-oo1he]

It's actually been renewed for a third season as well...

[@absentehhh8263]

2 seasons and it's cancelled

[@Raximus3000]

@@firstlast-oo1he Seriously?! Quality aside, who watched this?! Major reviewers do not seem to care about it, there is no buzz beyond fans who are rightfuly pissed the books got violated like this.

[@Marsdend1]

@@Raximus3000 My theory is that there were enough Wheel of Time fans and friends interested in watching it for the namesake, that it 'looks' like it performed really well, even though most of us ended up disliking it.

[@Raximus3000]

@@Marsdend1 Or they invested too much on it since season 2 was greenlit before season 1 even started and like always they do not want to say they falied. Quantity over quality after all.

[@Michael-vn8gz]

I had very low expectations coming into this as a book reader and I gotta say, it was worse than I ever imagined. I feel bad for the actors because I feel like they gave it their best with what they had to work with. The actor playing Mat leaving and having to transfer his story to Perrin felt jarring. I hate to say it, but this thing was a train wreck. I'd rather they start over vs do a season 2.

[@matthewfetke8488]

For crying out loud, could someone please acknowledge that having Perrin's eyes glow yellow and then just stand there and do nothing was lame!! Can someone please acknowledge that having Rand channel into a sa'angreal and then just have Ish disappear was lame!! Come on people wake up. I like that the girls do awesome things, no issue there. But the characters that I love from the book are nothing more than a support cast at this point. Sure Rand got some nice screen time at episode 8, but why did he need the sa'angreal? It wasn't obvious that he was even doing anything difficult that required tons of power. Also, why a sa'angreal? Maybe just start with a regular old angreal first?

[@ajbreivik9247]

Ever heard of Knight’s Watch?

[@Nyet-Zdyes]

RE: Rand and the sa'angreal... my prediction of what the show is going to do... Rand had a sa'angreal so that he could get blamed for breaking the cuendillar, part of the seal on the Dark One's prison. Remember "The Dark One" smirking at him? That's part of the setup. The other part has been going all season long... men worthless, bad, or incompetent, with notable exceptions Lan and Thom. Second theory... Just more piss-poor writing and more of Rafe Judkins' crappy personal agenda. In the books, that "Dark One" is supposed to have been SERIOUSLY injured by Rand at the Eye of the World... and Rand uses the One Power (saidin) to destroy that Trolloc army that Egwene, Nynaeve and Amalisa destroyed in the show... which also saved Agelmar and most of Agelmar's army to do some important things later on. BTW, Agelmar is not an idiot like he is in the show... nor does he despise Aes Sedai (rather the opposite), nor is he a "toxic male". And yeah, YOU ARE RIGHT... having Perrin's eyes glow like that and then him doing nothing, which is basically what he's done since he fridged Leila was just more stupid writing.

[@brainst0rm]

The scene where Perrin just... stands there, menacingly, while Valda cowers? Oh yes. That was goofy as hell, 100%.

[@AsmodeusClips]

It's not lame. It's a cool foreshadowing. You nerds take everything so seriously. The show is not the books and never will be. It's a different story, just like every adaptation. You're screaming like lunatics because a made up person is different than the made up person it's supposed to be based on... bro, even adaptations of real people based on facts change things completely, and for me, as a big fan of fantasy, the WoT season 1 has been amazing and much better than GoT or Witcher at immersing you in a fantasy world as if you're reading a book.

[@matthewfetke8488]

@@AsmodeusClips well that was insulting. Wasnt all those wolf scenes foreshadowing? So i guess the wolf scenes are just foreshadowing the foreshadowing of the foreshadowing for something eventually that might be cool? Cant believe you are defending Perrins character in this season. Its widely considered the most poorly written character in this 1st season.

[@mwlodar12]

Rand running away from a bartender with a sword just ruined it for me. This is the same kid who stood up to a trolloc in the first episode. Then we don’t even get to see him blow away the army at the end.

[@nstillwell9752]

I love how everyone keeps bringing up that Rafe wanted 10 episodes. He knew he was getting 8 episodes. That wasn't a surprise. He decided to spend the time he did have on the really important things like Kerene's death, Stepin's grief and Laila's death @Daniel Greene They did kill Nynaeve. And Egwene also resurrected her. That is what anyone watching the show would think. Why would they intentionally confuse the audience? Its not the small sets and unfinished CGI I hate the most though, its the lack of character moments. There were a couple moments that I really enjoyed. I loved the Aiel cold open. Rand hitting the target with his bow. All of the origin cartoons. But so much else was so bad. The last episode is just a huge exclamation mark on how bad everything was. It looked like a fan made movie... Sigh, I blame Rafe for how horribly it all came off. He has no experience and it is so evident. The show looks cheaper than anything made in the last 20 years. And it isn't bad compared to other fantasy shows. It's just objectively bad. I was so excited, following every bit of news released about the show. They have wasted the initial buzz and the viewership will fall off once people know how bad it is. I could not be more disappointed.

[@makoygaara]

Exactly. Game of Thrones had a smaller budget than TWOT. The Witcher has almost same budget as TWOT. Then, Rafe and his apologists are making these petty excuses? IMDB ratings has it all if we compare the 3 popular fantasy tv show in our era. Funny thing is, Amazon owns IMDB. Stats don't lie.

[@joshuatabor8755]

@@makoygaara game of thrones was a pretty accurate adaption if I remember correctly too

[@MugenHeadNinja]

@@joshuatabor8755 Only season 1 really... even then a lot of stuff was cut, but that makes sense and it's definitely the most book accurate season by a long shot.

[@alexandru.onofrei77]

@@joshuatabor8755 indeed and that was the best thing about it

[@alexandru.onofrei77]

@@MugenHeadNinja i'm sorry but i've just re-read the eye of the world...just to be sure. the show is in another galaxy, far far away :P

[@Phoenix-cc6ep]

I gave the show a pass as a campy, pure fantasy interpretation. I looked past the costumes, pacing and unnecessary plot detours; The lack of scale and budgetary wastefulness. I even enjoyed the ride up to episode 7. I saw that episode as redemption for the neglect our Hero received all season and a taste of the reward. Our sacrifice would undoubtedly payoff in the finale. All that was wiped away. A sobering slap in the face of my forgiving optimism. Everything undone, the veil was lifted and what laid bare was unspeakable. The show itself was a False Dragon. All the transgressions of the previous episodes had weaved together. The signs of madness had been everywhere but my love for the source was too blinding. My anticipation for additional seasons has been stilled.

[@bidossessi]

I see what you did there. 😏

[@alexandru.onofrei77]

I couldn't say it more "gently" :)))

[@bencressman6110]

Best comment haha

[@scottfree6479]

You're much more generous than I am. By the end of episode 5 I knew it was one of the worst shows I'd ever seen. Now I actively want it to be cancelled. I've never wanted a show to be cancelled, not even 2 broke girls, but this is so bad it's an active insult to the fandom.

[@anjolatope-babalola2338]

@@scottfree6479 I honestly thought this show had only one good episode, for the most part it was horrible A lot of people are forgivingwith thier reviews But as a non book fan, I was confused, the rules were not set up, I did not understand the world's or the characters, did not know why the villan was bad or what was so urgent that they needed to take care off, the characters had little development. Unlike the Witcher which has bad elements, but one or two storylines that interest you, this one has none. Tv is a visual medium, and they forgot the golden rule, show don't tell, they mentioned so much about the breaking and the evil one, but I never felt the urgency or scare that they tried to depict, cause they never showed it, they never showed us who or what was to fear, just a bunch of people I don't care about trying to save a world that was not built up properly for reasons that were not told

[@embladragland2577]

This was my first(sorta) introduction to the WoT world. Had never read further than the prologue and accidentally walked in on my parents watching episode 2/3. I got hooked, and immediately starting reading EotW. Not really because I thought the show was particularly exciting, but because I got introduced to the magic system, Aes Sedai and the Dragon through my dad’s explanation. Safe to say, while I still have a lot of dissatisfaction from the show, I’m glad I got introduced to the books! Please keep posting your reread of the series, I loved the first two, and I’m planning on reading the whole series:)

[@richardvaleron2572]

Im glad that at least there's that point of light, people reading the books because of the trainwreck that is the show.

[@TheSuperGGirl]

This introduced me to the world also. Now I'm binge reading through the 6th. It is such an epic story!

[@carlosgallo3952]

I was also introduced to the wot through amazon. 8 months later, here I am in Winters Heart (book 9)

[@WiiAllTheWayHome]

I'm surprised you didn't mention the scene at the gap didn't have Rand. That was the first moment in the books that I was actually terrified of Rand as the dragon reborn.

[@matthewbeale5083]

That's the one part of the finale I was really, really looking forward -- I can forgive swapping the cavalry charges for a wall, and leaving everyone else behind for the Eye -- so long as I got Rand Travelling in and blasting 5,000 Trollocs to smithereens without him understanding what he was doing or how he was doing it. Instead I got him making a funny face while holding a piece of glowing CGI.

[@JB-og8we]

They are going to downplay everything and anything to do with Rand, Perrin and Mat being the main characters and hero's. They are going to invasive the women and their rolls. It's so unnecessary to portray men of the world as Letcher's and drunkards. The women of the books had great rolls and were hero's in their own right!

[@HastyElderHaman]

@@JB-og8we No they're not.

[@krennorec8861]

@@matthewbeale5083 If they just made logical changes. But nooo, lets make stupid changes instead. From the women going to met the horde in the middle of a field, where a fade can get around and attack them from the back/flank or are just shot with arrows. To the idiotic changes of the magic system... Women who aren't powerful enough to know how to be taught how to link, no protection against dying while linked and ofcourse, the BS of bringing somebody back from the dead.

[@silvafangtv]

@@HastyElderHaman yes they are and have been doing so for a whole season

[@Klipschrf35]

One thing that you didn't bring up when it came to the burning out of nynaeve is that in the bonus content and after the show they clarified that she was a level four burn out of ten. Admittedly that's extremely contrived and should not even be a thing according to lore, and was filmed badly. They also should not expect people to look up the bonus content

[@laceymurphy9064]

I actually like the idea of the bonus content and the multiple ways to be immersed in the content. However, you do need the bonus content for a clear understanding. They should have made it easier to access and provided more prompts for people to even know it was available.

[@brendondavid7349]

are you kidding.... they actually stated that she was a level 4/10 burnout?

[@eetusillanpaa]

I think it is a failure of storytelling if it relies on external material to be understood clearly. For example behind the scenes and other material. It should be clear to the viewer what is happening. Needless to say, but there are exceptions to that 'rule'. But this is not one of those cases.

[@neiltaylor513]

Do they do MoT’s on burnouts……

[@joshsargent9599]

I swear Ny is like pretty much up there with how powerful female channellers can be no?

[@z5jahn]

They dropped the ball on character development, moving too fast at times and too slow in others. 8 episodes per book is not enough. Add in the fact we lost an entire episode so they could explain the warder bond with an inconsequential character and we wind up at episode 8 with no gravity and no soul. It pains me to say it but I think I'm done with this show.

[@bidossessi]

Remove ep 5 and ep 6 (Tar Valon) and you've got two brand new hours to work with

[@ChristmasLore]

@@bidossessi exactly. That excuse is so lame and completely moot after episode 5 and 6. They had those two episodes. They just used it for....some other stuff. (The bond and tower politics could have been introduced, even better, with some good writing, though the episodes- or just later seasons for the tower politics).

[@chrissisty992]

U can do 8 episodes a book. That's like 8hr. LoTR directors cut is what? Half of that. Issue is sticking to source material and not wasting time on stuff that dont happen in book. And really, they ain't doing 14 seasons. I've read 8. If that's the case, should have done 13 episodes a season and try to average 1.5 books a season. Maybe give a 2 hour pilot in season 1 and 2 hour finales for remainder of seasons...

[@tmntaddict]

Egwene healing Nynaeve was like all the Pokemon bringing Ash back to life from stone with their tears.

[@JJ-nu8qi]

Honestly if I hadn't read the books and was just curious to see their take on it I'd have checked out after 2 or 3 episodes. Amazon made it look cheap to me. They missed a bunch of chances in my opinion to clean up a few things from the books also.

[@MohseenLala]

Two things I feel Daniel missed criticizing. 1. The bad writing overall, which affected pacing as well. If 8 episodes wasn't enough then why waste time following a filler warder subplot? 2. The pretty bad action direction and lack of understanding about how medieval warfare works. The action is shot well, but directed badly, so it can be hard to tell.

[@joshsargent9599]

What would you have changed about the warfar?

[@groofay]

The warder subplot wasn't filler though. It was there to show us the connection between Aes Sedai and warders without exposition dumping in a visual medium.

[@M4tt888_]

The writing is SO bad, I can't believe it is not mentioned more. Its probably my biggest reason not to like the show. The characters have rubbish personalities and information is portrayed so poorly mainly because the writing is awful

[@justinrabaut]

The entire warder subplot was overdone and took way too much time. The overall arch/ plot of the show was badly paced.

[@togepreee]

The writing is atrocious

[@Drizzt-113]

As someone who hasn't read the books I just couldn't take this show seriously, like how can they introduce a concept and retcon it in the same episode ?

[@csarmii]

What do you mean?

[@jan-willemvandijk3850]

Maybe the don't touch anything in the blight?

[@Tacticus101]

I think the biggest problem with the series is that it doesnt follow its own internal consistency. You can endlessly debate the plot and character decisions the writers made, what was cut or changed and how much sense some of those decisions made; i have my own strong opinion on that. What they decided was to have the Emonds Field Five as the main characters, with the whole Dragon Reborn mystery, fine. So why do we spend so much time focussed on other characters? There is an entire episode spent on Aes Sedai politics and a large part of two episodes spent on Logain, with almost no interaction there with the "main" characters. The big ending battle with the trollocs is led by a side character we have barely got to know whilst the main characters passively watch. The characters and scenes there are great, and help set things up for later seasons, but actually detract from a coherent story. We should be discovering the world and the politics through the eyes of the main characters, as they discover and react to it, rather than as a direct reveal to the audience. The Aes Sedai should be these distant manipulative figures because that is what the characters still see them as; instead we get a disconnect because their childish squabbling has been revealed to the audience but not the characters. The series sets up its theme, and then promptly forgets about it and pretends to be Game of Thrones for a few episodes, and it undermines what otherwise were great characters.

[@finghinmccarthy5021]

One thing I can't help but harp on about is interpreting burning out as a literal thing rather than metaphorically burning the power out. If they communicated the addictiveness and joy of holding the power in the show it would come off so much more emotional if they kept the normal meaning of burning out. Other than that thwle show is a series of peaks and valleys with high highs and some very low lows for me.

[@dianemiles2720]

as a watcher not a reader I had NO idea it was fun and or addictive to use magic. That isn't clear at all. It honestly seems like no fun at all. They all seem super bummed to do it.

[@paradoxdriver4094]

@@dianemiles2720 Yeah, in the books its very clear that channeling the Source is incredibly addicting. It may not be "fun", but touching the Source once means you're going to do it... again and again. You can't help yourself.

[@TheJordanK]

Interesting I’ve heard both sides of this from non readers I talked to. Some noticed when they channel especially the newbies they look like they are high on drugs or something. While others didnt catch anything. So I do think they could do better but also it’s one of those things that is very easily explained in books by being in someone’s head or exposition. But I’m screen we are already getting too much exposition they would have to find a different way to actually explain it or idk. This is part of bringing channeling to live action that i just don’t think there is a right way or a way that it doesn’t look kinda weird. So much of it happens in ppls heads in the books that coming on screen it’s basically uncharted waters. Idk how to do it I hope they can get better at it. I think the girls going to Tar Valon will be major help in explaining things. A school environment is perfect for exposition lol. Especially about the power.

[@cbpd89]

High highs and low lows indeed. That's how I feel too. Stuff I loved, but also some things that are making me veeeeeery nervous about season two.

[@Tigrion]

@@TheJordanK simply to fix that they needed a bit more character scenes and maybe Moiraine could have tolled Eguane like in the books when she was first starting to teach her channeling it would be a perfectly natural thing to give to the audience an explanation in briefly how the one power works btw i don't think they used the words Saiding and Saidar so far witch i don't like but what ever it really isn't conveyed good at all that the one power is addictive and dangerous but still it gives you better vision and makes you feel like your truly alive while changeling it those are things they had to convey but didn't do a good job

[@supersage400]

I really wanted to like this show, and I gave it as fair a shot as I could. There were definitely things I liked about it too, especially in the first four episodes or so, and in the blood snow scene later on. In the end, I'm unfortunately pretty disappointed with what we got overall. I went in understanding that things that work in one medium, books, don't work in another, television. I knew that changes have to be made in storytelling to accommodate what works/doesn't work in those different mediums. At first, when I saw changes, I had this in mind and I tried to give the writers the benefit of the doubt that, somehow, they felt this was necessary; the story could not be properly done in television format without those changes. I even tried the trick where we think of this show as a "different turning" of the wheel to make it easier to accept these supposedly necessary changes. As the changes piled up, though, it seemed less and less to me like they were changing things because they needed to in order to make it work for a TV audience, and more that they were changing things just because they felt like it. Maybe because they thought it made the story better overall than what RJ wrote or because they wanted to increase the drama/GoT-like elements to make it more popular, or maybe some other no doubt well-intentioned reason I haven't thought of. In either case, I'm of the opinion that if you're going to do an adaptation of a popular written work, you ought to stick, as much as possible, to the source material and deviate from it only if and when you have no other choice and you really need to. The showrunners, it seems to me, don't appear to share this philosophy. A lot of changes in events and character traits/backstories...I can't see how they are necessary in the way that I described above. A lot of the lore changes in particular bother me a lot, because why change things about the world's magic system or history? How could those possibly affect the TV audience's experience of the world? They just seem like changes for no good reason. At what point do these changes go from making it an adaptation of RJ's work to a complete rewrite of it? I want the former, not the latter, and the show is really far away from that from what I saw. If people like the show, I think that's great and I hope everyone continues to do so; however, as much as I really wanted to like it, I think I've come to the conclusion that this show is not for me.

[@isaiahkoranda9533]

You hit a lot of what I feel about the show head-on. Why make so many changes, add NEW things, remove so much; when there is such a rich stock to pull from in the original works. Some of it can be accepted, but making up whole towns and storylines instead of just showing the story already written makes it seem like a lot of the changes were made to 'make a personal mark' on the series and not give an honest translation from one medium to the next.

[@nickyminaj709]

The writer for the show is just an idiot that think she is smart, i dont care about being sexist but clearly the show writer is a girl not yet a women, dumb and delusional. I can only enjoy until the episode 4, after that is cheap soap opera, im not a book reader, but this show is going into wrong direction, my 3 years old son can feel it.

[@davidpurvee9225]

Spot on, couldn't have said it better myself!

[@TheWheelTurns]

pretty sure the only reason any of us like the show at all was the amazing cast and acting. remove the acting what we are left with is not great. The actors totally saved the show - I hope the show runners can see what we see - it seems to obvious - an fix things next season.

[@nickyminaj709]

@Mike Dalby it doesnt feel that way, he sure write like girl.

[@gd1247]

Non-bookreader: I was quite excited for this show, not to the point of having insanely high expectations I think, but generally loving fantasy and knowing that WoT is a very respected book series. I'd give it a 5/10 I think. There are just so many aspects where it falls flat, mostly in terms of direction, pacing and visual effects. Way too many moments where I was just like "oh, ok" instead of being drawn into a world.

[@makoygaara]

Finally, an honest review from a non-book reader. I don't believe others saying that it was totally fine for them. Blah blah blah.

[@djmingia0981]

@@makoygaara So it's only "honest" when it falls in line with your own feelings?....

[@calebfleming123]

I’m also a non book reader. While I was under the impression Rand would be the main character because I at least knew he was the dragon before I knew there was a show coming out. He… up until the end of the 7th episode… was a side character? Lol? It was weird because I thought they just wanted to change the dragon to someone else and whoever it was going to be would be egwene or nyneave because of how much the show focused on those two. So when it was revealed that it was Rand… I was really confused. These types of shows have a look and a feel and it feels cheap. Below average. The costumes and affects, even the writing whilst having source material from the books. I feel the Wheel of Time was a giant missed opportunity on Amazons part. There’s still hope for more seasons but you know what I mean.They could’ve given the show a bigger budget because the wheel of time is an actual book series with much potential, like the Witcher books, the GOT books, Lotr books etc. I guess it’s understandable that it didn’t get a bigger budget because the LOTR series coming out has the biggest ever of any show or movie. LOTR is also well known and the movies are arguably the best ever made so it’s understandable they want to spend a lot of money on something with that amount of success as opposed to something people are not as familiar with.

[@meurer13daniel]

Production is reall bad. Color design, costume, everything looks very bland and uninteresting. Flat, as you said. Still haven't watched the last 3 episodes, don't know if I will

[@djmingia0981]

@@calebfleming123 It's budget is $8 million an episode. One of the biggest budgets ever for a show. But a fantasy show with a lot of effects needs more than that. A lot of the budget also got eaten up due to reshoots and last minute unexpected cgi due to an actor dropping and covid restrictions.

[@Dragonturtle99]

There was no mixed bag . It was a complete Debacle . Sickening mess

[@prokopnierostek]

Idk you all have super high standarts I liked it it had some good moments and it looked amazing

[@tylermclim]

The show does a horrible job at communicating the lore and rules of the one power. And it didn't need to, they could have used dialogue between Moraine and Egwene to explain to the audience those rules. It wastes precious time on plot lines that aren't needed, at the expense of sticking to the source material and giving the main characters more screen time. It makes stupid changes like needing the power to open way gates which creates huge plot issues down the road. So many of the changes in the plot just seemed unnecessary and make the story worse instead of improving it. They neutered Rands awesome moments at the Eye. Some things looked great, like Emonds Field, the Trollocs and Fades, Tar Valon and Dragon mount. At the end of the day it just seems like a wasted opportunity. It's like the Hobbit in that regard.

[@Redicolus]

Fully agree. But have u see the leaf in Padin fains hand? And he comes out the ways 🤔 So I have a hope that they have the leafs as "keys" to open the ways and u can open them whit the power as well. That's a smal change but still sticking to the lore of the ways.

[@skyesfury8511]

"The show does a horrible job at communicating the lore and rules of the one power." There's a reason for that. Same reason that they couldn't let Lan tell Nynaeve he cannot marry. Same reason that men in the show are constantly being denigrated and shamed and shown as incompetent or degenerate in some way. Same reason they completely shit on the fundamental aspect of the Dragon Reborn can only be male. This is 2021 (i.e. "It's [current year]" meme). Men are not allowed to be positive role models, only conduits to show the negative parts of society and institutions. Women "don't need no man" and are the only righteous beacons of morality and "can do anything a man can do, but can do it better". Notice that not once, in the entire season, did they ever even hint that there is a male and female aspect to the Source. Moiraine tells Rand that she cannot teach him to channel, not because a woman cannot teach a man to channel and vice versa, but "cuz men r -evil- cant be not evil if they channel". This show is full of this intersectional garbage.

[@markborok4481]

@@skyesfury8511 "Intersectional" means that members of one oppressed group can still be oppressors against a different group. e.g. women can be racist, minorities can be sexist, etc. If Nynaeve was shown to dislike the Tinkers, that would have been intersectional.

[@nicholasoberle2894]

THIS!!! The amount of time wasted on a very rushed love relationship of staring at each other between Lan and Nynaeve is ridiculous. I counted 19 seconds of staring before either one said a word. Like this world is FULL of material. No need to waste time on staring. Super poor dialogue, and over dramatizing each scene. I mean Jesus I feel that every actor is going for an Oscar at every scene with tears or dramatic language/movements lol nobody acting normal. Almost like a drama play

[@skyesfury8511]

@@markborok4481 I'm well aware what the definition of intersectional is. What it is in practice, however, is bigotry against straight people, white people, and males.

[@LastMinuteGuess]

This really should have been the biggest blow out hit since GoT. As someone who prefers Jordan's world more than Martin's, it astounds me that they dropped the ball on a possible cultural phenomenon. I don't have a single friend interested in viewing this show.

[@wolfjoat]

Something that was bugging me through out the show was how the world would feel almost too big at times (like when you see Mat and Rand hiking through the mountains on location with these sweeping drone shots) and then too small at others (like the Hall in the Tower or especially the streets of Shadar Logoth, one of the grandest cities from before the time of Hawkwing that seems to only have alleyways and small roads that somehow feels smaller than Edmond's Field.

[@elizaheathen]

some of the sets were pretty terrible

[@jamiecare1042]

Could not agree more

[@sportbilly2008]

I don't mind it being too big in world perspective as you can always fill that out with history and lore... and generally looking epic (2021 Dune looks epic and that only helps the world). But as you said when it looked small it was stupid small, Tal Valon is a big city you say? Dunno I only saw a couple small streets, hell the little town where Mat and Rand get chased by a chick with a sword could be the same size if we didn't know better. Everything seems small, inside Fal Dara, the ways, every place. It feels cheap and small.

[@wolfjoat]

@@sportbilly2008 Exactly, I think my issue was a combination of the juxtaposition of the vast emptiness for the location scenes with the the smaller feeling soundstagey stuff and in particular to Mat and Rand's journey the fact that the book had them either on the road or the river for most of it which are both at least a semblance of civilization. Say what you will about the issues with both Game of Thrones and The Witcher but at least they both felt consistent in the world they presented.

[@ChristmasLore]

And most of all, all the time, in both cases: empty. (And no, it's not covid, it did not hit till end of episode 6- then break before episode 7 and 8)

[@mangagnome9764]

I did it. I ordered the entire series! All 15 books. Can't wait to begin. Thanks for getting me into the wheel of time Daniel.🔥🔥🔥🔥

[@thetackyprincess]

In the dream sequence with the baby, Egwene says, "when we came back from The Eye," out of context, which tells me they all probably went to The Eye. But with reshoots, they put Egwene, Perrin, and Nynaeve in Fal Dara

[@MShaiqable]

@al'Thors Taint Ugh! Rafe is an idiot then

[@Anomanderrake_]

@al'Thors Taint what the fuck? Rand deserves each and every big moment he has. Egwene and Nynaeve have lots of epic moments as well… Rand was supposed to destroy the trolloc army and not a bunch of untrained women… Nynaeve doesn’t even have any epic moments in book 1 and Egwene’s supposed to be weak… The books are so much better.

[@williamcobbett4943]

Taking Rands thunder in the last episode ruined the whole show. We still havent seen how powerful the dragn reborn is. Having the girls defeat the trollocs will be a problem later down the line.....

[@TT-qc2mu]

We don't really see how powerful he is until later tho

[@telltellyn]

There's plenty of opportunity to show how powerful TDR is.

[@lottam9972]

I don't know if we need to see that yet nor if it will cause a problem later. The first book ending is super clunky as well but I dont think you realise his full potential till the much better final battle scenes in 2 & 3. Highly doubt they'll give the tear stuff to another character xD

[@MrBellsa61]

"hurr durr stealing men's action scenes" Lol, Rand destroying the army was like half a page that RJ added after the fact cause he forgot to address the fact that he sent an army to the Gap.

[@TimmyTeller3115]

@@MrBellsa61 "Hurr durr, there's no menbadwomengood agenda, durr" Meanwhile: In this warped abomination of a show Lews Therrin Telemon in the Age of Legends went from a leader forced into a desperate Hail Mary play to try to contain the evil of the Dark One after a team of researchers - lead by Llanfear, a woman as it happens - created the Bore into the Dark One's prison in pursuit of power in the books, to a reckless, short sighted moron who needlessly destroyed the world in the name of his own ego after he ignored the express warnings of a woman who is clearly depicted as an inherently wiser, better person than him, forcing women Aes Sedai to pick up the pieces left by the idiocy of male Aes Sedai, meaning that in this version of the tale Moirraine's speech about idiot, arrogant men breaking the world through their own foolishness in the first episode is supposed to be the truth of what happened in the Age of Legends, further denigrating the intelligence and moral character of Lews Therrin and the other male Aes Sedai even before the Taint manifested.

[@fearsengar6341]

Having just watched Dune it makes WoT seem so bad. In a mere 2h 35mins Villeneuve manages to tell the first 3rd of the story magnificently. Are you seriously expecting us to believe that Rafe cannot tell the story of 1 book in 8 hours?

[@Revanchist]

Mr. Villeneuve is a objectively better then Rafe in every way. Also Dune didnt try to ponder to todays American politics too much.

[@HastyElderHaman]

Villeneuve is one of the best directors today, I don't think it's a fair comparison. If you're expecting Dune (and I think WoT deserves an adaptation like that) from Rafe you're going to be consistently disappointed.

[@fearsengar6341]

Oh I totally agree that Villeneuve is amazing and I totally agree that with Raginor running WoT I'm going to be constantly disappointed. I also totally agree that with WoT trying to meet every woke agenda whilst demonising men or making them emotional wrecks in every scene then Raginors WoT will never be remotely like anything resembling a decent show. That all being said I still discredit the argument that the show needed another 2 episodes to flesh things out. My 12 year old has more writing ability than Rafe has shown in this season.

[@davidbowles7281]

Dune is a lot better written, too.

[@Uouttooo]

@JustDev I don't know which Dune you watched. At no point was that movie boring!

[@TheMightofDab]

As a book reader, I genuinely feel kind of guilty for talking about this show to my friends so much before it came out. I would never recommend it in the state its currently in. Saying its the same level as the witcher season 1 is very generous

[@joemeatballs3694]

For real, I feel like a fucking idiot

[@MrHATING101]

I made the same mistake and I wouldn’t do it again either .

[@joeblazer3429]

@@joemeatballs3694 bro, I feel you. Got 2 other friends to watch the first 5 episodes with me. Then had to go through the embarrassment of telling them not to watch the rest of it later after I watched episode 8

[@sirhowardthecoward]

I hated myself for being excited like I was. There’s nothing about this show I liked. Lan was so painful. The first episode was the only one I thought was ok ish.

[@FoxCastleChild]

Season 1 of Witcher blows the production of Wheel of Time Season 1 out of the water, even with its bad CGI dragon

[@proevoisace7]

I enjoyed some of the series but for me there were too mamy changes, the cgi was awful for a show in 2021 with that budget and it felt massively rushed, i hope series 2 is better as I will still be watching but it needs at least 10 episodes maybe 12 and a lot more character development, and also just stick to the books, i understand some things need changing but not big plot points

[@elizaheathen]

the effects were terrible, no doubt I desperately hoped the weaves would look different than they did in the trailers. but alas

[@robdonut66]

"...just stick to the books,", if only.

[@luizpinheiro336]

I don’t know about other people, but the show was entertaining enough to convince me on reading wheel of time, by itself this contain a lot of value, lots of people will pick up the books and WoT will skyrocket in popularity.

[@nathanprime2434]

Fair enough point. Having the bar set SO LOW with the show and then have the elevated experience of the books!

[@elizaheathen]

you are in for a wonderful ride :D

[@avsambart]

Yeah I am totally on the "I have to read the books" train thanks to the show. So they succeeded there.

[@kimbauer6551]

Agree. I started reading the first book because of the show.

[@ukiluser]

Same. I was already planning to read it but now I'm excited for it

[@patricksmith8262]

Rafe has repeatedly said that he was going to make changes that he knows will break things and that he specifically didn't want the show to focus too much on Rand. The lack of character development of the EF boys in particular was by design. And, I'd argue that several of the choices made have actually damaged those characters, They wasted time that should have been spent following the book more, which would have allowed for the much needed character development, instead inventing story lines that wasted time and took away from the overall flow. Rand was a passive bystander in his own story. When they finally do the reveal at the end of ep 7, do non-book readers even care about Rand? What was done to get viewers invested in him? Non-book readers are (generally) enjoying it more, in part because they assume there is a plan with a payoff. Whereas book readers can see all the world-breaking choices and how they diminish the storytelling. We see what missing and how much poorer the story is as a result. This isn't an adaptation, it is bad reimagining filled with poor choices.

[@MichaelAlthauser]

"Rafe has repeatedly said that he was going to make changes that he knows will break things..." If breaking things is his intention then he's doing a great job of it so far. There were a lot of changes made for the adaptation that felt really unnecessary and detracted from the final product rather than making it better.

[@tonykirk8295]

Tbh I just read EotW for the first time and Rand is pretty passive in that for most of it too.

[@ladydevildog8946]

💯

[@JB-og8we]

100% they are downplaying the importance of the 3 boys. The women characters and of the world are taking the leading roles. Men are deadbeats in the show.

[@vitaklon]

Big disagree on this take. I have read the entire series multiple times and I have zero issue with the way Rafe have focused more on the entire cast instead of mainly Rand/Perrins perspectives. Seeing it more from Moraines perspective was a smart move.

[@jeffnelson4780]

My favorite character in the books is Mat. I'd turn the last page after reading a chapter and see the dice on the top of the next page and think "I can live without a little more sleep, I need to read this".... I've never been able to relate to characters that are liars or thieves. and when the show writers decide on a whim to change Mat into a thief, I just about lost it there. I don't think the actor was fired for an anti-vax stance like it's been reported here and there, I think he quit because he loved the character and didn't want to be the one to ruin him. Also I think they'll have to dig deep to show Fain's true evil as well. Spoiler alert..... 1 He's starts as a dark friend. 2 He goes to Shayol Ghuland is changed by Ba'alzamon. 3 He goes through Shadar Logoth and is changed by Mordeth. 4 he travels the ways and is changed by Machin Shin. All these changes makes him an amalgamation of all the evils that are in what some came to call the third age, and all that happened in the first book before total madness and a bunch of name changes (Ordeith, Jeraal Mordeth, and Shaisam). Good luck Amazon.

[@Bandanko]

and then the books kill him in a throw away chapter as if Brian Sanderson forgot about him....

[@svenlauke1190]

I like nothing about the show, but the boys were done dirty most of all. what do we get in the books? three good friends, barely men, more boys. fiercely loyal to one another, each with different strengths (self control, whit, calm), each with weaknesses (uncertainty, childishness, self doubt). They know little about the world but are eager to learn, AND what is probably my favorite running gag of the books: each one thinks that the other has better luck with women, or understands them better, when in reality, all three are clueless most of the time. here we get some angsty, obviously not teenagers that are all a pain to watch.

[@NoalFarstrider]

If you ever meet a Malkieri, you tell them Jain Farstrider hated this show... Dovie'andi se Tovya Sagain!

[@therevanchist7066]

@@NoalFarstrider This made me chuckle😂

[@shawnn7502]

Thank you for an incredibly fair review. There are things I like, but overall I don't know how you can be a lover of the books and NOT be disappointed in this. A 5 or 6 out of 10 is the best I can do.

[@Insane_Kane]

It was nice to see that he pretty much gave it the same rating as i did, if they hadnt butchered ep8 i would gladly go 1-2 higher though.

[@firstlast-oo1he]

Personally I have quite a few gripes with this show, but at the same time I kinda love it, even if it is very flawed. I like the books more, of course, but ig I'm the type of person to like both things for different reasons.

[@JohnSmith-og1xq]

I love wheel of time it is literally my favorite book series and I love it to death Rand had a profound impact on me and Perrin and Faile we always fun to read. I literally worked hard and saved my money to afford a Memory of Light That being said as much as I love Wheel of time I can't watch this show even though I have Amazon prime and I can watch it for free I will not watch I'm sorry if this offends anyone I seriously mean no offense if you like this series please enjoy it :)

[@shanedbunting]

Amen I also tried . I watched the first ep and had to stop it when they showed Matt's home life tried again after 10 or so minutes and then they killed Perrin's wife . I wanted to at least get one ep under my belt but I can't watch this show, it's too frustrating to sit there going "Why ,Why Why The Fuck Did They Do That?"

[@spendsshanks6050]

Who gives af if it offends anyone? And why enjoy absolute dogshit? Better standards should be in order because this show is a crime

[@JohnSmith-og1xq]

@@shanedbunting wait they gave Perrin a wife just to kill her? Wtf was the point of that?

[@shanedbunting]

@@JohnSmith-og1xq well she is very important to they story they wanted to tell . That being , it's the story of a a group of people that said that they have read and enjoy and understand the source material but really they probably were told second or third hand about the books and maybe given a readers digest style primer before before production began.

[@johnbunceiii2668]

@@JohnSmith-og1xq Well, you see, they heard Perrin is a bit of a reluctant warrior. So, naturally, he had to have a wife and unborn child die in front of his eyes (by his own hand no less) to set up that character arc. Clearly there's no other way to develop a character like that 🙄

[@KNIGHTSWATCH]

Great review mate. love hearing your thoughts on stuff, especially Wheel of Time. Your comments on the Aes-Sedai's emotion in the show gave me a lot of thought and I think I agree with you on that and many other things. I do feel there is a lot more in the show that can be criticized but I'll leave that for my own reviews. Thanks for all your work and wishing you the best. -Shad

[@Joe-xo4yg]

Potictial should be a word I like it ‘Colour’ me amused 🙃 🤙🏾

[@HastyElderHaman]

There are things to be criticized and then there are three hour videos on a one hour episode where you whine about wokeness, women and the gay agenda. I'm sorry but you lose credibility for any of your more reasonable criticisms when that's the way you view media. I know the views incentivize you to continue that charade but I'd implore you to rethink your strategy. There's enough to criticize in the show without getting into culture wars. You don't need to view media constantly as an "Us vs. Them", we all want fantasy television to succeed. You are hindering that from happening by encouraging this behavior.

[@silvafangtv]

@@HastyElderHaman but the shitty emasculating of the males in the show is ruining the show too

[@JesusIzAPunkRocker]

I can't agree with the political fight you've picked with the show runners (although, TBF, perhaps they're the ones who started it). The world is caustic enough without the culture war also spilling into media and it's reviews... Maybe that's a route you're better off avoiding in the future. BUT, for what it's worth, you were right about the show's quality from the start, and weren't afraid to say so. So credit where it's due. PS, I love your enthusiasm at shadiversity, and will always watch you talk Medieval weapons/armor/tactics even if we might not see eye-to-eye politically. Thanks for the content and honesty!

[@egadzitsme]

@@HastyElderHaman Don't be hasty Elder Haman, the show picked this fight, Shad goes long and stays strong. To what degree should entertainment be further entwined by ESG funding until you consider that perhaps it's okay for people to criticize things like the WoT show on the basis that the show itself prioritizes the culture war over quality?

[@RakeshWarier]

The biggest positive of the show for me is that I got introduced to the books. I am reading them and I fell in love with the world. I love the idea of reluctant messiah. On book 4 now. Show failed to establish Rand as a character. The magical system was poorly explained. All magic looks like lighting in the show. Not even a hint of 5 elements. That's sad. I will watch season 2. I am not eagerly waiting for it.

[@gilian2587]

Welcome to the fanbase!

[@onestepcloser5925]

Same here. I had no idea it was based on books. After the horrible season finale, I saw some reviews that mentioned the books and decided to use one of my audible credits to get the first one. It was incredible and made me dislike the show even more. I'm now on the second book and excited to see how this all goes.

[@gilian2587]

@@onestepcloser5925 Although it will chafe the show apologists to admit it; I suspect yours will be a common experience. ;)

[@xandara75]

@@onestepcloser5925 The audible versions are great as well. I personnally took a bit to get used to how its 2 narrators taking turns in the same story but they pull it off quite well after you get used to it.

[@NoalFarstrider]

If you ever meet a Malkieri, you tell them Jain Farstrider hated this show... Dovie'andi se Tovya Sagain!

[@brandonedwards9874]

I don’t agree with the sentiment that there is hope here for season 2 and beyond. The first season is so poorly done and the foundation for any show is so important and it was just totally ruined here with these 8 episodes. As a huge fan of the books even that can’t keep me interested. There’s nothing they can do to fix this besides cancel it and let someone else try again in 5 years or so. Also 6/10 is grossly generous in my humble opinion.

[@Mechinwisdom]

Yeah, I have a LOT of negative things to say about this series and often non-book readers or apologists who rate this show 10/10 tell me to stop watching. I will not stop watching, or calling out BS, because I have hope. I have hope that all of this is going somewhere and that someone, somewhere has the best interests of Robert Jordan's life work at heart. It is sometimes disappointing to be an optimist, especially with this season, but there is still a lot of material to cover and Rafe Judkins could possibly die of covid. (whistles song from "Life of Brian")

[@ergofiction5627]

It's kinda crazy that all the show supporters felt the initial negativity was unearned. The finale was just the icing on the cake. Bad writing and a seeming lack of knowledge/care for the source material plagued the entire season from episode 1. I liked the actors and some character tweaks/visuals. But even disregarding the blatant misuse of the great source material, this show was just bad. Take the WoT label off and it's just high budget flop.

[@adriangodoy4610]

I pushed the show to my family and they where asking all the time who is this? What's happening? All left the show arround episode 5

[@fatetestarossa2774]

INDEED this is more like 4 /10

[@wagnerthomas6780]

I never read the books, but defently not going to watch season 2, for me it was uninteresting and stupid, I actually wanted to drop it mid season unfortuanately I didn't.

[@TheHazeKiller]

They should especially not waste their time on fan fiction side stories if they're already limited on the number of episodes they have to tell the story.

[@hangingwithharry5657]

The entire first season was just fan fiction.

[@robwalsh9843]

I don't think it's true fan fiction, because I somehow doubt that Judkins and the other writers are actual fans of the series. Watching this show, I can't help but detect an undercurrent of smug contempt for Robert Jordan and his characters.

[@hangingwithharry5657]

@@robwalsh9843 I agree, considering Judkins said he does not agree with Jordans gender thoughts. Pike said she read part of the first book only.

[@fatetestarossa2774]

@@robwalsh9843 Good POINT

[@thomascain7587]

I think the focus on Stepin in episode 6 really baffles me in terms of your point toward character development. Ultimately this story is about the Emond's Field Five, the greater amongst equals being Rand. I think the whole "Who's the Dragon" question was silly in retrospect, because what it ultimately did was stall Rand's development as a character when in episode 7 we needed him more fleshed out. Same goes for the girls in a way. The decision to make them "dragon-eligible" and ta'veren takes away from their main drive in book one. The wheel drives the boys toward their respective destinies, the girls chase their own. They took two strong female leads and by trying to make them more important early, took away some vital character aspects.

[@thomascain7587]

@Connor Naive I think that would have been a huge help. I agree with Daniel that a 2nd episode in Emond's Field would have been great. Give me scenes of the boys being goofy. Give me Rand and Tam scenes. I would have liked to see more between Marin and Egwene too. Would have liked more character building before the trollocs attack.

[@jhkuhn]

@Connor Naive While it would have helped, these writers squandered two entire episodes on Stepin and Tar Valon that almost entirely cut interaction and growth between the EF5. 8 episodes was always going to be short, but it didn't help that they limited themselves to 6.

[@MDP1702]

@Connor Naive Don't really expect much from more episodes. They already added things that weren't in the books and are unnecessary. With more episodes, they'd likely just add more filler to push their own message i fear.

[@TimmyTeller3115]

In this warped abomination of a show Lews Therrin Telemon in the Age of Legends went from a leader forced into a desperate Hail Mary play to try to contain the evil of the Dark One after a team of researchers - lead by Llanfear, a woman as it happens - created the Bore into the Dark One's prison in pursuit of power in the books, to a reckless, short sighted moron who needlessly destroyed the world in the name of his own ego after he ignored the express warnings of a woman who is clearly depicted as an inherently wiser, better person than him, forcing women Aes Sedai to pick up the pieces left by the idiocy of male Aes Sedai, meaning that in this version of the tale Moirraine's speech about idiot, arrogant men breaking the world through their own foolishness in the first episode is supposed to be the truth of what happened in the Age of Legends, further denigrating the intelligence and moral character of Lews Therrin and the other male Aes Sedai even before the Taint manifested.

[@matthewfetke8488]

Its because Rafe hates men. Im surprised his hatred for men hasnt convinced him to do a gender modification .... yet.

[@drewlovs]

Was that all one sentence? Clean that up, you have too many good points for them to be lost in a single rambling run-on sentence!

[@TimmyTeller3115]

@@drewlovs Never mess with perfection!

[@MetalCharlo]

@@drewlovs bro hitting the word count for his essay at school. A++

[@lukebatchelor717]

yeah that was a great point, but you need some periods in there. women matter too!

[@spencerwhite3432]

Never having read the books, my friends and I were hyped for the first 3 episodes. The focus on the main characters and their interactions and their journey of discovery was promising. Then…. the rest of the season happened. And I can confidently say that unless I hear the most amazing things about season 2, I will not be watching it

[@wolfereignowns1154]

That is actually very funny since book fans will tell you that episode 3 was the last episode in which they seemed to be at least trying to keep to the story in the books. They were some character and lore changes but the general story was basically the same as were the characters they followed, after episode 3 it was nearly all made up . I personally find making up so much new content is a problem given the time both parties have to put into working out the world, characters and story between a book author creating a world over decades vs making and writing a story in a year or two.

[@joshuatabor8755]

Did it catch your interest enough to pick the books up?

[@det.bullock4461]

@TheGuy Game of Thrones came from a novel written by a person who was mainly a TV writer, it's the same with the Montalbano novels by Andrea Camilleri: the structure of the novel was already very close to that of a TV series because the Camilleri was a TV writer and he tended to write with that kind of pacing in mind, WoT need a lot of reworking to work decently as a TV series with less than 15 seasons.

[@brednbudr2406]

I hope you try out the books. They're so so good. I've been a fan since I was a kid, and the show just butchered them.

[@brednbudr2406]

@@det.bullock4461 and yet, they didn't even try to emulate the books. Like he said, the first 3 episodes are the most similar to the books, and the ones they liked the most and had them excited for the show. The moment the writers diverged, the show went to crap.

[@lamenter6932]

personally i hated The Wheel of Time Season 1.

[@brandondodd3140]

I always hear the point given that books do not translate to the screen adaptions and all that. Correct me if I’m wrong but Game of Thrones seasons 1-4 were pretty dang close to the books excluding a couple minor details and those were the glory days of that show. I don’t see why we can just follow a similar trajectory here.

[@kennygraham4067]

Yeh I hear that too....and it has some merit. Books do some things better whereas TV, movies do other things better. But, I think they COULD have adapted the first few books of WOT pretty faithfully. The later books would more of an issue. I also think they would have been better served simply cutting out sections instead of outright altering plot points. This first book especially lends itself the best for a pretty faithful re-creation. I remain firmly in the camp that the show would have worked quite well from a story perspective if they had simply done that. For instance cutting out Baerlon and Caemlyn and such is fine and can be worked around with pretty minimal disruption in what actually happens. Having the girls fight and win the battle of Tarwin Gap instead of running from their lives from Forsaken is not the type of changes that should be occurring. I know budget was one reason they had to change some things and probably a reason stuff like the Tarwin's gap battle doesnt look great.. And you also have the fact that they probably can't realistically take 14 seasons by doing a book per season. But at the same time, budget is a very unsatisfying reason. Either give the show the budget it needs to be done 'right' or don't do it. That said, I don't know how much Budget factored into the changes I found objectionable.

[@MattGarZero]

Jurassic Park is usually the standard I hold book adaptations up to. The book and movie are very different, but both share the same core themes and characters.

[@robbybevard8034]

Martin had a huge grounding in tv writing before he wrote GoT, his structure and pacing lent themselves to a straight adaptation more than some books. Also, GoT is MUCH shorter overall, they knew they'd be able to cover everything that existed of the books in 5 or 6 seasons, so they didn't have to make any huge choices in cutting. WoT, which is more than triple the length of GoT, will have at best, 8 or 9 seasons, 70-80 episodes, (maybe 100 if its REALLY popular) when it'd need to be like 350 to cover the books. It's not going to be a 15 year show, so they've already had to start restructuring and making cuts now so that things will flow later. Character traits and issues (Like Perrin's the hammer or the axe) started in episode 1 instead of in season 4, for instance. And Rand's confrontation at the end of the season ties way closer to the final book than it does to the first book's original ending. It'd be a different case entirely if Wheel of Time was an ongoing novel series and they had zero idea how long it was going to go and it was still only on book 4. We'd probably get a more faithful first couple seasons, but then it would inevitably catch up and have to make up the ending whole cloth.

[@Dra3000]

Welp game of thrones didn't have covid either

[@raddude585]

Although I agree that I think a lot of people use the "you always need changes" overly much as justification in and of itself I do think GoT had the advantages to being a fundamentally easier to adapt work in many ways. For one thing the fact that GoT uses magic much more sparingly in general and especially early helps a lot with keeping budget concerns cropping up whereas WoT has magic front and center early and often in a way that I am sure causes headaches on a TV budget. Also, at least from my perspective, the world of GoT requires a LOT less exposition. It's essentially culturally medieval Europe with a lot of fantasy elements that are essentially well established tropes. Things like dragons and zombies really just don't need that much exposition to get to a point where people understand the basics of what is going on.

[@skyesfury8511]

"I feel like I was given almost no time to watch them become Egwene and Perrin." That's because they are not Egwene and Perrin. None of the characters in this series are from the WoT books. They're from some fanfic based on Jordan's books. While this show is not bad, it's not good, either. Lan is the one who told Nynaeve that he cannot marry. Not the other way around like the show does. Perrin does not have a wife at the start of the story. Egwene is not in a relationship with Rand. Mat is not a degenerate. Thom is not a smarmy thief in some backwater mining village. Elayne is not... oh yea, we didn't get to meet Elayne because they cut four entire chapters from the story. Key chapters that set things up for later events. Logain was not stilled in some cave. He was stilled "off camera" at the White Tower. Alanna is not an Aes Sedai until much later in the story. She wouldn't even be in the party that's bringing Logain to the White Tower. She's an Accepted at this point in the story. Moiraine would not have given Rand a sa'angreal. The entire Emond's Field group (Rand, Mat, Perrin, Egwene, Nyneave) went to the Eye of the World. The Eye of the World is NOT the Dark One's prison. The Horn of Valere is not at Fal Dara, it's at the Eye of the World. There are so many more things that are wrong, too. None of the writers have ever read any of the books (any who claim they have are flat out lying). They looked at the wiki and thought "We can make a CW quality story out of this!" and got to work crapping this out. This show is not Wheel of Time. It's fanfic (and not even good fanfic) based on Jordan's work. And it's an abhorrent insult to the franchise.

[@fishtacosgalore1523]

They definitely needed more episodes. Or less focus on the warders mid-season. In the moment, the Stepin story seemed valuable to establishing the aes sedai/warders/tower. But now that we’ve seen how rushed and unearned the finale was it really shows how detrimental it was to skip over all the character/relationship building with rand and mat on the caemlyn (or white tower) road.

[@jermainegrays]

Exactly

[@M4tt888_]

I think you are right, if they had so little time for thr main plot as they clearly did then I think they could have delayed the warder world building to later seasons. Or at the least not spent so much time on it as its not integral to the story this early. I wish they had spent the screen time developing the relationships between the main characters, especially how they feel about moiraine dragging them off to be the dragon. If that happened to me and my friends, there would be lots of discussion about it daily, especially once she has threatened to kill us if we pick the wrong option lol

[@bluelight17]

The Stepin story was actually done well, but they already had a limited time. They should have shown him going berserk in ep 4 and have him die there, it really dragged too much. I fear with more episodes they would have put even more filler (Egwene's braid ceremony in the first episode was actually cut short).

[@Longblade13]

@JustDev I mean, they spent 1.5 episodes on a no-name warder when Elayne doesn't exist at all. The warder stuff is a problem. If you're going to cut entire main characters out, we don't need any extra fluff.

[@CloeteHenri]

Thanks for a great review, I wholeheartedly agree with almost all your points. I think it is a decent fantasy show (although "decent" is not really doing justice to Robert Jordan's work), but after watching season 1 with a positive attitude and open mindset, I personally don't really see the point of further following the show as a book reader, even if it the quality of the show dramatically improves. This is because Rafe just seems adamant to make so many deliberate changes to the plot and the lore, which were not necessary for a TV adaptation (or forced by the Covid situation or departure of Barney Harris), that my mind really struggles to adapt. I spend the entire episode trying to figure out what is going on and what the changes mean for the overall story, and end up getting next to no joy from watching. And honestly, if that is the case I would rather use the time to read the books again or watch an objectively excellent fantasy series like Arcane. So I probably won't be tuning in for Season 2 (which is a shame, since I have been super hyped for the show for almost a year). But I do wish them the best of luck in drawing more fans to the world of the Wheel of Time.

[@M4tt888_]

I'm kind of on the same page as you. I can get behind or get over plot changes they make for pacing reasons etc, but changing the characters personalities is unacceptable to me. And the makers have shown that is clearly their intent. I'm not interested in watching a show where characters have the same names as some of my favourite literary characters of all time but are actually different people

[@MichaelAlthauser]

I yelled at my tv a lot during the last episode. =\

[@DKChubs]

@@M4tt888_ I can feel where you're coming from here, for sure, but I decided to start a re-read of the series after the first episode dropped (it's been over a decade since I last read the start of the series) and honestly? The changes to the characters' personalities from what they were in the first (and, for most of them, the second) books is one of the things I like most. Assuming, of course, that they grow and mature (...or whatever it is you'd call what Mat does through the series) into what book fans fall in love with.

[@M4tt888_]

@@DKChubs I'm glad you are enjoying it. I'm just not sure i can live in a world where Lan can't track Moiraine without being told a secret "tell" by Nynaeve 😂

[@isaacdoggart4879]

Personally I thought it was a bit of a rocky start, was doing better and better and then kinda just went off the rails. I will definitely watch the second season unless they do something horrible but I hope they just straight up retcon at least half of episode 8 into a dream or some sort of blip in the pattern. It would be pretty obvious and contrived but they painted themselves into a couple corners that could easily be fixed by just pretending that pretty much everything after the trolloc army is spotted did not happen.

[@spencerryanmusic]

I was so upset after the finale that I went and mapped out the entirety of the season one that I would create if I were show running. It was cathartic. I encourage everyone who feels the same to take a couple of hours to do this. Believe me, I know there is more to writing and show-running, but with the money they had, they could have done something similar. I made changes of my own (like skipping Baerlon because of rumors of high Whitecloak presence there) that would cut down on the amount of locations necessary to film. I also gave the Lan, Nynaeve, and Moiraine sequences a bit more time than they did in the books. Kinda spoilers: I also added Thom’s nephew’s stilling as a cold open, the bloodsnow (probably the best scene from the shows), and Logain’ assault on Ghealdan. Like the show, you still see the Winternight attack as the cold open of Episode 2, as the climax of Episode 1 is the attack at the farmhouse (which the show absolutely did Tam-a blademaster-dirty on) and the fever dream. We lose the pointless, “who’s the dragon” nonsense that did nothing but distract and keep us from connecting with the characters. This made what should have been epic moments in the show fall flat. “Oh, this redhead that I have spent all of five minutes with is the dragon? Neat, I guess.” I still got it mapped out at 9 episodes of around an hour each, except for probably the finale. You still get the story and characters you love, and you still get some changes necessary for adaptations. It wasn’t that hard to at least map out a story that is true to the heart of the books. Rafe and crew really bombed on this one. I don’t even think I will be watching season 2.

[@KnotGypsy]

LOL, I did the same thing!

[@spencerryanmusic]

@@KnotGypsy we should all send our versions to Amazon so they can Balefire this abomination and start over. Haha

[@kristian762]

They're totally butchering the story. Season finale was a shocker. I don't think increasing the budget is gonna fix the problem, Rafe Judkins needs to get the axe. His vision for the adaptation is sorely lacking. I'm absolutely gutted😞

[@Jay-xs2ug]

I decided to do the opposite of most WoT book-readers and start by watching the season then reading the books. I think sometimes book-readers get a little sentimental with characters they’ve known/imagined for years and aren’t fair to the adaptions….However…. Almost finished EotW (book) and can say without doubt - this first season is kind of a hot mess. WoT readers have been a really kind and understanding as a fan base imo. Hoping the next season is executed better (and we honestly have every reason to believe it will be!) Talent and budget is there

[@brednbudr2406]

Wow thank you. We've been called a hell of alot of names especially "Book purists" for our critiques. It means alot that someone who did what you did, says that openly. Thanks. I've been a fan of the series since I was a kid, and the show was kinda heart breaking.

[@Chabooki]

We all wanted to like it so badly

[@ericsimard5889]

Considering character development being a weakness in S1 and that they had only 8 episodes, I still do not understand the full episode about Steppin. I think, IMHO, that they could have developed / exposed the warders’ background with an episode featuring Lan starting to train Rand with the sword. Mat could have been healed during that episode and have a certain fight against two swordmen. The info about warders would have been given and we would have gotten some main characters development. I feel I got more development for Steppin in one episode that Perrin for the whole season. Now I’m very curious how and from whom Rand will be able to get enough training to survive a certain encounter with a particular Highlord out west.

[@bidossessi]

Hell, I don't understand why Siuan was in this season either. As for the High Lord, it may never happen in the show, the way things are going...

[@step4018]

Why would show Rand head to the West for that fight? He left on his own into the blight with "tell them all I'm dead". He knows nothing of the Horn, the dagger, there is no threat to Mat in the show...

[@jpem4664]

@@step4018 And he knows nothing of Callandor either so he's kind of in a weird spot now. The show did a really bad job setting up immediate plotlines that shape the next couple books. I doubt he'll end up in Falme but instead go straight to Tear. I'm guessing he'll meet Selene and she tells him about Callandor or something given they never bothered to mention any of the prophecies.

[@Book_Cloak]

The fight with the swordsman happened after Falme in book three, but I agree with your thought process. Mat's stay in the tower after being healed is when we really learned anything about Warders, but they were pretty much kept ambiguous/mysterious throughout the series, it was just enough to know they are bad asses.

[@skyesfury8511]

The reason we got an entire episode about a Warder that's not even in the books is because the actor is Rafe's boyfriend. That's it. That's the reason.

[@abigailslade3824]

The problem is there was never a mourning scene in the book we get to see LAN’s humanity in other more subtle ways in the books like when he teaches the boys to use weapons.

[@maudley]

Eh, that might be too subtle. My issue with the scene is they didn't keep his stoneyness to juxtapose it, so it doesn't really accomplish anything.

[@andrewadams8601]

I agree. That's one thing that I hate that they left out. I love in the books how Lan becomes a mentor to Rand, and how that relationship that was established in the first book showed that Lan wasn't just some unfeeling stone. It also informed Lan's relationship with Moiraine because of how Lan would stick up for Rand occasionally if he felt that she was going to far in trying to coerce Rand into her plans. This would have been a great way to build Rand's character in the show, which was something that was sorely needed since he felt so bland by the season finale. They even could have found a way to work it into the season finale by having Lan actually show up for the showdown between Rand and Ishamael, and Rand using Lan's teachings to channel and defeat Ishamael. One detail that frustrates me so much about the show is how they never explained the significance of the heron-marked blade, even when they had Ishamael comment on Rand carrying one in the season finale!

[@oskarpalus2846]

He was always duty before mourning kind of guy, but in this one specific case, mourning was his duty, so its fine for me. Not giving him another fight scene is criminal though.

[@thedungeon1578]

@@oskarpalus2846 I think we see Lan cry more than we see him kill stuff.

[@zakanderson9670]

@@oskarpalus2846 in this specific case, they totally made up a reason to have him mourning. The only purpose was to diminish Lan

[@dealspeed6756]

I just want to thank you for finally giving a critical review. I know you have tried to be as fair as possible with this series. It's the only WoT series we're going to get, and for that reason, I have tried so hard to enjoy this for what it is. In the end, I am incredibly let down with choices they have made. This was a book series that highlights the strengths and weaknesses of Men and Woman and how working together is Key to overcoming the challenges they face. The series has murdered that theme. They have made men seem weak and arrogant, unable to accomplish anything without a woman's guidance. The cold opening of episode 8 highlights this problem with the scene of Lews Therin. This massive problem is present in every episode and it ruins the whole show for me.

[@WhyName]

That scene was the final nail in the coffin for me. It's yet another of the laundry list of unnecessary changes they made that make the series worse.

[@Dooger414]

See THIS talk is why we get this garbage. There have been two adaptations already of WoT... this is just the latest. There were also several adaptations of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings before Peter Jackson came. Hell... Sony reset Spiderman 3 times in under 15 years... so how about fans stop saying "we have to like it cuz it is all we'll get" and instead say "try again, sleezeballs" to corporations that clearly hire based on a socio political checklist over someone who ACTUALLY READ THE BOOKS!

[@Logic105]

Thank you for finally being critical? He should've been critical way sooner. He gaslighted everyone in believing this show was any good.

[@dealspeed6756]

@Logic105 oh I'm aware. Just being polite is all. No reason to be an ass towards him.

[@zachryder3150]

Oh boy yeah! Let's hope you still get invited to the season 2 premiere!

[@manyrandomnumbers]

Serious question: How do the showrunners make Season 2 good? Not even great, just good? Obviously, a live action TV show cannot be a beat-for-beat adaptation of the books. That said, Season 1 has ruined so many significant plotlines already that I do not see how they can fix it even with adaptations made for TV. I have no faith in the show. At this point, I'm resigned to waiting another 20-40 years for someone else to take a shot at it.

[@sacredbeastzenon]

I feel Daniel Greene is so soft on this show because it's based on his favorite book series. This show is just bad.

[@Kesedrith]

@@sacredbeastzenon, except at this point it's not even based on the books. It's Rafe's stories with characters and places named after some of those in Robert Jordan's books. This is, at -best-, very bad fan fic.

[@CarloNassar]

Or maybe less than 10 if possible.

[@groofay]

I personally liked the show quite a bit, and it got me into reading the books which should be considered a win on the show's part. Did I have issues, yes. But as first seasons go? Pretty alright. And with it being the most successful thing on Amazon Prime Video at the moment, I hope they get more time and budget for season 2 to further flesh it out.

[@carl-friedrich9596]

They are already in the middle of filming season 2, so the success of seasons one will not have any impact. Maybe they just give them a slightly higher budget for the final episodes in season 2, but the script will already be done.

[@MarielaQue]

I like the first season and I have now read half the books. I think the season did succeed in a lot of ways. But could have been better.

[@vitaklon]

Glad to see a positive comment in the sea of valid and not so valid criticism. I think they did a good job on this show overall

[@gabnel1000]

Honestly i'm not a fan of the show but i'm not surprised "with it being the most successful thing on Amazon Prime Video at the moment" amazon had built itself up as a place to get qualities show like how some of their shows prior to WoT have been really successful. - Also WoT already came along with millions of book fans - And also lots of viewers are starved for fantasy shows, which are not common like say superhero shows are. All of this contributed to the shows success on amazon

[@girlscandrum22]

I watched the first 2 episodes and hated every second. I've read the book but my husband hasn't. I kept having to explain things and we just made fun of everything the whole time.

[@lorddraven4995]

Im a book reader. Read the series many times. One of my take aways from the first season, if I was to put myself in the shoes of a non book reader is the show has a shocking lack of villains. The trollocks run riot in the first episode, then are seen but do nothing in ep 2 and briefly in ep 3. Even in ep 7, there is one in the ways who immediately gets yeeted before doing anything. Then the ones In ep 8 do nothing. Climb on each others corpses, wipe out trained soldiers in seconds and then die to the planeteers whose powers combined. The fades were not portrayed as terrifying enough. They have been very underwhelming all season and none of there supernatural skills like shadow melding or unnatural speed has been showcased or even the thrankandar forged blades that basically kill even if only a scratch. We just got a made up wide toothy mouth that is not from the source material. You made them look terrifying but not feel like it. Mashadar and machin shin were on screen for mere seconds with the first at least killing a horse. We got one dark friend all season. Who was somehow more powerful than 2 grown men. Padan fain did almost nothing except whistle all season and kill(but not really) loiel. The fucking forsaken for gods sake, got a quick sentence In ep 5 and that's it. The first book built them up as nightmares made flesh and the moment you realised they were loose at the eye was huge. Instead we get no forsaken Unless you have subtitles on, or watched the side content, a non book reader would assume that it is the dark one at the eye not Ishamael. Even balzamon dreams were limited to about 3 of them. Any great fantasy show needs villains and this series has done a poor job of giving us anything super threatening. I wonder what they will do to address this going forward. Oh I forgot the whitecloaks. I suppose they did them well enough. But they always felt more like zealots than real bad guys in the books. The show made them more evil and sadistic, so I guess we have something villainous after all.

[@scambammer6102]

men are the villain

[@Beast80001]

Honestly I think nynaeves performance was really good. She went from being one of my least favorite characters in the first book to one of my favorites.

[@andyhannon255]

I like Nynaeve when I am not in her head, so for me show version works quite well :)

[@adamp6320]

I haven't yet read the books (but I want to!) and my partner and I thought she was the worst character of all, constantly angry at everyone for the wrong reasons and never suffering any repercussions for her actions. (Threatening Lan, the Seat, Moraine who were all very good to her and her friends) So...I guess it's good to see mixed opinions!

[@sacredbeastzenon]

@@adamp6320 Book Nynaeve is awesome! I find her anger endearing, and I think the books do a good job of explaining why she's angry.

[@neiltaylor513]

@@adamp6320 yup, same here, seemed a character with a external stick up her posterior

[@damp2269]

@@adamp6320 without going into spoilers: Nynaeve is someone that had a lot of responsibility from a very young age and had to show she was not a kid hence why she is the way she is. she might be close in age with the other 4 but their relationship was not that of equals. She is a bit annoying at first but she grows a lot and like in the show is about protecting the other 4 which doesn't work as well in the show because you don't to see the other 4 doing or making up stupid plans in the first place. What I'm trying to say is that she goes overboard but she had reason to go there in the first place.

[@saraholivares4747]

As a non book reader, if that wasn’t supposed to be Egwene bringing Nynaeve back from the dead, it was extremely unclear.

[@SeanHillaby]

Reading the books just makes it more confusing because they break and ignore rules.

[@bluelight17]

It really was. Bringing people back from the death is a big no in the book and they really should have had Nynaeve at least moving or something. Egwene shouldn't be able to heal anything at her level (they seriously made healing way too easy in the show) but at least it would be better than resurrection.

[@JKenny44]

Having read 4 books I do not see how it could be interpreted as anything else.

[@vertigov5303]

I genuinely feel that they didn't even try to follow the books at all, and had their own agenda.

[@joemeatballs3694]

They definitely went out of their way. Everything was teed up for a homerun and they decided to bunt

[@Logic105]

You're spot on.

[@Logic105]

@@joemeatballs3694 they didn't decide to bunt, they tried to change the rules.

[@ollietaro]

I agree. A lot of what I loved about the Eye of the World book were those moments when E5 is dancing at an inn or sitting down with the travelling people. It grounded the epic fantasy in its characters who are like real humans!

[@thedungeon1578]

There's just so much lore that hasn't been explained at all. They kind of touched on Ta'Verin in the final episode, but it's one of the first things mentioned in the whole show and we shouldn't have to wait 7 episodes to get a rather quick and weak explanation of what that means. They haven't really explained the magic system at all, which is terrible since it's so well covered in the books. They have literally claimed multiple times now that Lews Therin acted out of arrogance. He certainly was arrogant, but he acted out of desperation. Their only other plan was the massive Sa'angreal, but they'd lost the keystones, and this was the only plan left. They were losing on every front. But when we see the age of legends, there's no sign of war or destruction, no hint of desperation, nothing. We get a cold open where they could have done so much to establish why these things happen, but we don't get any of it. Worse yet, supposedly the Aes Sedai knew the source could be corrupted in the attack, and Lews does it anyway? There's no indication that anyone knew that was a possibility, and if it was, then Moiraine channeling at the DO (or who she thinks is the DO) would risk the same thing, but she does it without hesitating. Where's Hopper? Where's the Wolf Dream? EXPLAIN this stuff show!! Perin's story goes no where because the main part of his story in book 1 is the wolves. He sees wolves. He gets along with wolves. He maybe dances with wolves, but he never actually speaks to the wolves. He never kills any whitecloaks either, yet that's a storyline that hunts him for the rest of the series. I mean, he can kill them later I suppose? But why not have him just kill some as they escape the camp? I can't blame them for Mat really. The actor didn't come back, so that's not their fault. In the book Mat doesn't do much either, so whatever. They didn't need to make him evil though. Mat's the funnest character in the books. He and Elayne are two characters that really have a good attitude about everything. Their upbeat and optimistic, even when things look dark. That's definitely not what we saw of Mat this season, but hopefully that changes. Instead of giving us multiple funerals or spending tons of time on minor characters that they've just killed off, they could have had more of Moiraine teaching Egwene about the power. In the books Egwene asks things like if the One Power is in Moiraine's staff, or other objects. This is good stuff for the viewers to know. They had the scene where she trains her a little, but they never taught us how the magic works. Then later, when we see them destroying entire armies of trollocs you wonder "What's the White Tower been doing this whole time? Why not send like 10 Aes Sedai and just burn the Blight clean of every Trolloc and Fade in existence? We see 7 fully trained Aes Sedai struggle to hold back Logain's army of what... maybe 100 guys? But then 5 people who aren't even Aes Sedai destroy 5000+ Trollocs? Sure Egwene and Nynaeve are stronger than any of the Aes Sedai were, but the other 3 were weaker. There's no consistency. I'm sure 2 more episodes would have helped, but the amount of time spent on love triangle drama and building up minor characters just to kill them off makes me wonder how they would have used the extra time. I would have rather gotten Hopper and the Wold Dream than basically an episode of sad Stepin being sad. If something had to go, chop that time in half and do Hopper. Teach us how the magic works. There was time for this stuff, it just wasn't used.

[@stefano1488hh]

what do you mean about the actor (Mat) didn't come back?

[@xanidustheall4755]

I have the same gripes about the show. Way too much time on trivial things that could have been spent on the things that make WoT interesting.

[@bluelight17]

@@stefano1488hh There was a long break in production due to covid before they filmed the last two episodes. Barney (Mat) left suddenly during that time and they had to rewrite his parts and refilm the end of ep 6 when he doesn't get in the Ways. Pretty sure he was the one that was going to talk with Padan Fain in the last episode, and not Perrin.

[@brednbudr2406]

Very well said.

[@stefano1488hh]

@@bluelight17 too bad, I honestly didn't like much about the last episode... let's see in season 2 if this show gets better. In the mean time I can read book 2 :)

[@jcarm185]

The constant natural flow of your slightly controlled chaoticness is amazing - never stop being YOU Daniel - you are the best! Falling cameras and non-cooperative props included.

[@thetoadking7414]

I don't care who hates me, I read Nyneave as Nyvere in my head for 6 books before I realized my mistake. She is Nyvere now.

[@FaeraGaelwyn]

I take issue with the fact that Moirane in the show just goes "ok" when Rand say's he's the DRB. They rewrote the lore for the show to imply that a woman could be the DRB, then made Nynaeve go supernova after having Moirane tell Logain that the DRB will be like the sun (Then of course having Logain "see" Nynaeve channelling/holding the power and comment about how bright it was... when he wouldn't have seen diddly squat. Just an angry lady screaming at Lan.). Rand comes to Moiraine's room because he's a [man that can channel], when the show has established that [A man that can channel] is not specifically a requirement for being the DRB(one of their stupid changes to the worldbuilding to sell the whole "oooOOOooo who could the dragon beeeee?" plot). Moiraine, in the show's bastardized lore, would have absolutely zero reason to suspect that Rand is the DRB over Nynaeve. Also, if the DRB can be a woman, how come there's never been a female False Dragon? I still hate their Perrin rework and Moiraine outright lies multiple times throughout the show. "I did not know she could channel" lol.

[@douglas2938]

Moiraine had no reason to think Nynaeve would be it because she hadn't channeled (even when she fought the Trolloc) and because she even says as much, that she's too old for it - which she had already asked Nynaeve about directly in episode #1. If she had even a hint of suspicion, she wouldn't have just left with the kids without even considering some way to find whether Nynaeve might still be alive. Then, given the way she is with Egwene, I'd say she's simply trying to cover her bases but she doesn't actually believe it will be anything different this time around.

[@matthewceplina9134]

Moiraine suspected Nynaeve could channel. She probably had Aes Sedai prejudices toward how Nynaeve channels influence her perception. Since Moiraine never witnessed Nynaeve manipulate the flows, she couldn't know with any confidence that she could channel. As for Logain, he can see ta'veren. Per Amazon, all 5 of the Emond's Fielders are ta'veren.

[@kaleanteus]

For me the big issue with Lan’s mourning scene is that it wasn’t set up to contrast strongly with his established character. Book Lan is a rock come to life. Show Lan is a jokier, smilier, person. He’s not a rock. He’s not even particularly reserved, just kinda quiet. And I don’t think even that quietness is very well established in this. So when they have him do this gigantic all out wailing scene it isn’t in contrast to everything we’ve seen before. It’s just another scene with this guy who isn’t book Lan. I can understand the designated mourner thing and I could even see Book Lan going as big with his “performance” in that role as the one in the show does. But this doesn’t work because this isn’t book Lan. It doesn’t hit hard because it isn’t in stark contrast to who he was prior to that moment. And because I don’t feel that Show Lan has a strong enough identity without knowing who Book Lan is to draw on, I think the scene just does not have the impact it’s intended to and for many book watchers it comes off as incredibly unfaithful to the source material.

[@melanatedqueen6662]

I loved it and thought that was one of the best scenes. I’ve always given shows like these a lot of grace to deviate from the written material. Why do I want to see what I read translated on screen exactly like it’s in the books? I’ve already read it and I already understand, know, and love it. I want something different. I learned at the age of 6 when Disney did sleeping beauty that written source material is not the same in visual mediums. It can’t be. They need a wider audience. That scene drew a lot of folks in. I see why they added it. It hit right and it invoked a emotional reaction in ppl who watched it. There are a lot of ppl who didn’t read the books watching; probably more non book readers than readers. This scene was for them and it did what it needed to do.

[@kaleanteus]

@@melanatedqueen6662 an 8 episode show could never do a one to one scene for scene replication of the book. Of course things need to be changed for the screen. But whether that’s the case or not, this scene was not well set up. For most people it did not invoke any response and for most people who enjoyed the books it was a strong turn off. As to whether or not an adaptation should try to be faithful to its source material, I think if the writers are going to change things significantly as these writers have they need to prove they have a new vision worthy of telling. Sometimes that works. The Shining is brilliant and it mangles the source material. But this isn’t the Shining and after season one I don’t believe they do have that kind of vision.

[@moepilator]

The climax spinning camera scene felt like a Bollywood drama scene for its editing

[@gowzahr]

When I saw the first teaser for the show, I thought, "No, I don't want to watch it and have it pollute my memories of the books." After watching this review, I'd say I made the right choice.

[@xPTKx]

I enjoyed the journey, and i'm happy WoT was given a chance finally. Many of the actors really seemed to care about the show and did their best, but oh my god, there were so many questionable choices. I gave the show so many breaks, trying to be understanding of the issues of adapting, actors leaving, ect. But they butchered so much lore, and future plot points. Safe to say I wont be watching the second season unless someone convinces me its worth it. I can't watch them butcher something I loved so much. Silver lining I guess is that it had me reread a few scenes from the books, which then turned into me re-reading the series. Currently on Fire of Heaven, and I have to say, Shadow Rising reminded me of why I loved the books. Truly amazing.

[@joshuahorn4786]

To bad none of the actors cared about the acting, source material, or characters.

[@Echidna23Gaming]

@@joshuahorn4786 That's an incredibly ignorant generalization. Multiple main cast have started reading the books and I think the actor for Rand is past like book 11

[@joshuahorn4786]

@@Echidna23Gaming after watching the show, you can't prove that any of them read so much as the introduction to any of the books.

[@ijustwanttolikecomments4677]

@@joshuahorn4786 you do realize the actors are not in charge of writing scripts or directing, right?

[@joshuahorn4786]

@@ijustwanttolikecomments4677 you think? I would have never known that. What an enlightening statement,who ever would have known? Is the sarcasm coming through?

[@omerlavie2816]

I think the biggest problem with this season is that it generated zero hype with non WoT fans. I barely hear it talked about, online and in real life. Your videos have been the only ones about it to have more than a 100k views, and thats mostly because of you, not the show.

[@dreamer2260]

Yep. This is the biggest sign to me that long term it will flop.

[@mikbom13]

Thanks for the content as always!🙂 The biggest fail of the show is not having people dread the dragon reborn. The hook for me in the first book was the dragon reborn will destroy the world while saving it.

[@goksekor]

Made a Reddit post about this almost exactly as you put it. They focused so much on "WhO iS tHe DrAgoN ReBorN" and they completely missed their shot on "Why the Dragon Reborn will make us weep for our salvation". Suuuuuch a big missed shot in my opinion.

[@TheLizardKing752]

That echos what I said in my own comment about Shadar Logoth and the Ways. There's no sense of dread and foreboding.

[@ijustwanttolikecomments4677]

@@goksekor that's something they will(hopefully!!!) get to flesh out in s2. there are a lot of things that i wouldve done differently, but was still grading the s1 around 6.5-7.5/10 as a whole...that finale dropped a whole point off my grade, but they definitely had covid/Mat issues going into it...so considering that i understand why the finale went off the rails a bit. i'm hoping they can find their footing a little(and maybe listen to some of the feedback and get more episodes and include more book scenes) in s2 and things can get better. i'm really really hoping anyway, because i don't want to wait another 20-30 years to maybe get another adaptation..