Ranting About Wheel Of Time Season 2

Alright, it is time to talk about the wheel of time season 2.
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[@DanielGreeneReviews]

What did you think of the season? War of the Worlds Kickstarter: tinyurl.com/wotwFN

[@KingDueceND]

Better than this review

[@sieuzice]

From 8 to 12 episodes? Man I would LOOOOOVE 4 more episodes of Moiraine drama.. taking things from a 6 to a 10 with Lan, her family and her lover.. soap opera unleashed. They don't need more episodes if they're incapable of managing efficiently the resources they do have.. we initially gave them the covid excuse for season 1 and how things might have been complicated because of it.. What excuse do we give them now?

[@bigjonS4]

@@sieuziceYup. 50 episodes and it would still be an incoherent, contradictory mess. They couldn’t squeeze a great hunt for the horn into eight episodes.

[@jwstorytelling]

As someone who didn't read the books, I enjoyed it. Definitely better than season 1. I'd give it a 7.5/10

[@Nynaeve....]

I was honestly super disappointed in the season. There are good moments. The place of the white tower became more amazing. Some of the initial egwene captivity was great. Other than that I'm really disappointed by additions, character and lore changes. Rather than fixing problems from season 1, things were made worse. I will say I enjoyed watching but often went "no no no" while watching when something contradicted the books. Like I could enjoy in the moment and then get punched in the gut when I saw all the disconnects within the show and between the books and show.

[@KnightlyASMR]

Ranting? More like, “randing,” am I right?

[@dirfrops]

Lol. That comment was gRAND!

[@willmangrum3686]

You can see yourselves out....

[@jossecoupe446]

🤮

[@Ellthom]

gottem ;p

[@leostarrs-cunningham8576]

Hahahahahahaha

[@jeremyvanneman8112]

12:49 Egwene is absolutely ta'veren... In the show. As is Nynaeve. Egwene is absolutely not ta'veren in the books - as is established in the source material as well as thematically. I mentioned on your live stream with Brandon in more detail, but a huge part of being ta'veren is not actually wanting to make a big impact on other people's lives but being pulled into that because of who you are as a person and the situations the Pattern puts you in that were unexpected. In the books (and in the show) Egwene wants to make waves from the start - which means her being ta'veren is a writing crutch as opposed to an interesting writing tool.

[@leza4453]

I think Egwenes accomplishments were so stunning BECAUSE she was neither ta'veren, nor the strongest channeler, nor had a lifetime of royal education. She was just though as nails, ambitious, smart and eager and could bend every situation to her benefit.

[@jeremyvanneman8112]

@@leza4453 I completely agree! She's such an interesting character in large part because she used every opportunity she got in ways no one else could have anticipated to do exactly what she wanted. The boys were all interesting because they kept using situations they were put in (usually against their will) to make the biggest positive impact possible before going back to quiet lives - over and over again, without ever being able to fully realize those quiet lives they were each searching for.

[@bidossessi]

Being ta'veren doesn't mean anything in the show. Ask any show-only audience: I bet you none of them even _knows_ the word, let alone what it implies.

[@jeremyvanneman8112]

@@bidossessi I honestly didn't remember it being mentioned aside from the one time Moiraine used it as the reason she headed to the Two Rivers in season 1 - but eventually did come across Fain briefly explaining it in 108. I didn't watch season 2, so I don't know if it ever became a thing. However it is true that the writers don't appear to understand how that plot device plays into the story, let alone how to do it in a character driven way. They just say "hmm... We have no clue how to make this work. I know! Ta'veren! It works because we need it to - regardless of what it is, or what world building we've created that it destroys."

[@bidossessi]

@@jeremyvanneman8112 if the audience had been "shown" ta'veren at work instead of only being "told" that it exists, things would have been different. But it's that kind of show - they tell, they don't show.

[@russelljackson8153]

The tower scene instead of being the Dragon Reborn's moment to be announced to the world, felt more like the end of a Scooby Doo episode with the whole gang particpating in unveiling it was Old Man Ishamael the whole time. No sword duel with High Lord Turak, no battle in the sky. My friend who watches this said she had no idea that Rand is supposed to be the main character.

[@SpiritStoneWarrior94-yx3gs]

To be fair you'd have to be quite slow to not realise he's the main character, when they've made it a point to talk about him being the Dragon so much, and season 1 was all about "finding the dragon"

[@coyote271280]

not her fault, Rand is not the main character in this show. It is whatever character Rosamund Pike is portraying and the showrunner advertised it as so since before season 1 was even completed, the show would be based off of Rosamund's character (I know it's supposed to be Moiraine, but she has little to no resemblance to her version in the books). Rand is the 'McGuffin', the Deus Ex Machina tool that Rosamund and everyone else needs to control in order to achieve whatever it is they want to achieve. He has no agency and his character is only important in how he can make Rosamund and Egweane shine.

[@OracleTruth24]

Agreed. Old Man Ishamael: "And I would have gotten away with it too if it wasn't for you meddling kids! Especially that badass Egg! I was so shocked at the power of her shield that I just had to stand there and get stabbed!"

[@SpiritStoneWarrior94-yx3gs]

@@coyote271280 no worries 🤣 I'm not surprised that you think that tbh, there seems to be quite a lot of contrarians coming out of the wood works with this show. Rand is clearly the main character, yes Moiraine has gotten quite a lot of screen time, but that is expected when she is the most well known actor/actress. While not everything is in like with the books, there is a lot of changes that needed to be made due to TV and Books being completely different mediums, and most of the changes work quite well.

[@ryanoconnor7508]

​@@SpiritStoneWarrior94-yx3gswhy does the change in mediums mean they have to keep giving Rands moments away? Egwene just finished her incredibly satisfying arc and then gets Rands as well a 2nd time. And no Rand awkwardly stabbing Ishy while he stood there and did nothing does not feel like a replacement for the battle in the sky after he was shielded and on his knees for the 6th time this season. Why would the change between mediums mean we see Nynaeve of all people train with the sword more than Rand?

[@TheSilverOrn]

Daniel please listen to what you are saying and then maybe rethink your ratings. Its a Wheel of Time TV show, its supposed to be an adaptation and not the current fanfiction, but you are saying they should have removed the horn from the great hunt because it didn't matter in the show and there was no real reason to hunt it. That Rand shouldn't have fought with a sword because there has been no mention of training with a sword. That we should skip the entire dragon reborn book (which makes sense because the show itself has kinda skipped over the dragon reborn too). All these things are symptoms of a failure of the show to properly tell a story. I feel like you are saying the show is okay or good but then list all the ways it completely failed to adapt the WoT books or themes or important moments. The thing is that even the argument that this is another turning of the wheel doesn't really work because if its another turning of the wheel that means its by definition a fanfiction not based on RJ's works but instead another person writing a story in RJ's IP. I do like your videos and I'm sorry if this sounds aggressive or insulting, because I don't mean to be. It just sounds like a lot of dancing around to just say its an okay show while ignoring the overarching narrative disconnect from the core themes and moments of the books. And to be clear its okay that this show is a Fanfiction, I actually like The Foundation show which is a horrible Foundation adaptation but a nice sci-fi TV series. This show is the equivalent of a test where a person is asked to draw a dog and does a wonderful cg model of a cat instead, they might have done good work but they completely failed the assignment.

[@coyote271280]

Thank you. I was interested in an adaptation of the Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan. The moment I heard it was supposed to be 'another turn of the wheel', I lost all interest.

[@travhatestrav1729]

35:17 Dan said just that

[@TheSilverOrn]

@@travhatestrav1729No he doesn't, he says that he likes it when they go off on their own, like with Lanfear, but that isn't adaptation that is fanfiction grafted onto the WoT IP and setting. Dan says that he doesn't think Rand should have fought with his sword because we never see him train, which is a huge failing of the show and its writers because we lost the fight in the clouds because we had to see Liandrin's son's death, Moiraine's little sister and her family, or any of the other things that regardless of quality of writing still don't belong in a WoT show because they are fanfiction.

[@backliteyes]

They should’ve done away with so much drama between Lan and Moi and used that time for the horn.

[@bigjonS4]

What would they be paying Rosamund Pike for though? seriously, this is a big problem when casting a well known actor into a minor book role.

[@Stevandoren1003]

That drama was useless. I don’t understand it. My guess it is taking place of what happens later in the book with Lanfear.

[@kimian6779]

I felt my intelligence had been insulted when they firmly set it up that Egwene can't hurt the Suldaam, and then she went ahead and hurt her Suldaam. Ruined her whole season arc for me.

[@andrewdemarco3512]

it gets weird when they both have each other as damne. Maybe with teh feedback they cancel out some of the rules. Otherwise neither one would be able to do anything to each other. It is clear they can both hurt each other through the adam though. If you mean placing the collar on her in the first place, that could have been internally justified. As long as she didn't see it as a weapon in that moment but rather as "this will help her understand" and as a teaching tool.

[@im1085]

@@andrewdemarco3512 lol so many hoops to jump through to justify bad writing thats only there because the wish Eggy was the main character

[@elseby]

@@andrewdemarco3512 I think the logic they were going for is that the stronger channeler has more control. Considering Suldaams are just weak channelers, someone as powerful as Egwene can easily take control. Also, Rinna just got collard so she is in shock so she doesn't know how to work around or fight its control unlike Egwene who has been enduring it for a while already.

[@SuspenseGames]

@@elseby They were trying to show the Egwene is so much stronger than her Suldaam that she can kill her without even harming herself even though she was doing 10-100x more damage to herself as even described in their own show. It's terrible writing. Stick to the books. Stop ruining shit because you want female characters to do everything. They do plenty in the damn books as it is or just write your own damn script and story and leave this alone.

[@kannolli2]

@@elsebyI mean let the audience know somehow then…

[@FelixM86]

I REALLY hope that the Aesedai take the dagger from matt and that he'll get a proper Ashandarai from Ruidan. The evil dagger tied to a stick might have been ok for one episode, but this shouldn't stay with him through the show.

[@leza4453]

Yeah, how would he never touch it by accident alone? What kind of plot glue kept it on the stick throughout fighting? I hope it doesn't stay

[@cynicallysweet7441]

I'm gonna be honest this is how they lose me. I want to like the show. I really do. I've had to ignore a lot to get to where I'm feeling about it, which tbh still isn't good. But if that is the ashandari. I'm out. Just can't. Know it won't matter to amazon but my heart will be broken to pieces.

[@Goldilockszone123]

@@cynicallysweet7441 I wonder is they will use the twisted doorway portal at all. They have Mat remembering and he has a weapon. They don’t seem to recognize iconic moments from the books (flicker-flicker battle in the sky) and yet break their own arms patting themselves on the back for doing such a great job. Need I talk about character development versus a series of random events occurring in the last episode because they needed to throw them in.

[@Perry_Wolf]

I'm afraid that I think Sanderson already confirmed that, despite trying very hard by opposing it, this is Mat's Ashandarai. He admitted this while prominently face palming.

[@ronaldpope484]

@@cynicallysweet7441 I'm with you there. Mat is my favorite character and they butchered him.

[@peterbaldelli2644]

Show writing is just bad…they blew it. One Piece is a great example of taking difficult IP to translate into live action and pulled it off on a High level with good writing and building great characters in…..wait for it……8 Episodes! It was bad writing by a group of people who are writing bad fan fiction. Sorry Daniel. Still love your channel but hard pass on your his show going forward. It get a low 6 to me. I agree about the actors and sets but the writing tanks the series.

[@DragonKingSkye]

Not sure why everyone keeps saying more episodes when there's already plenty of time in the current episodes that's wasted as hell.

[@Taveren]

10 episodes -- with a focus purely on the original plot structure

[@Stonehorn]

Yup. Episode count can’t fix bad writing and destruction of the story

[@fromolwyoming]

Daniel, love what you do, your channel, and love the Wheel of Time books. Was even a member of the now defunct website, Theoryland (the forums, the rest of the site is still up). I'm someone that fully understands adaptations having to make differences from the source material in order to fit. But the changes are so severe, that it can hardly be called "Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time" and instead, "Rafe Judkins Wheel of Time". The stories and arcs of Rand, Mat, and Perrin are pretty much tossed aside while giving everything to Egwene. Rand's whole role as the Dragon Reborn and what that means, has been tossed by the wayside. For, what? "Power of friendship"? I love the books. They're my favorite series, and it hurts to see the story that Robert Jordan so carefully crafted, get torn down in favor of Rafe Judkins' awful fanfiction.

[@jolabrese]

It does really feel like fan fiction (not saying anything bad about fan fiction but its not an adaptation).

[@olorin3815]

its sad because its true it literally is at the level of fanfiction i get it that dude might rly love WoT and some of his changes might even be good but quality of writing is just plain bad, nothing makes sense its filled with plotholes there is no setting stuff up, paying stuff off, arcs are a mess its literally just fanfiction for cool scenes

[@coyote271280]

This is even worse than the Witcher show, and that is a heavy statement. I believe that anyone in the writer's room for this show has ever read the books, they were probably given some cliff notes version provided by Rafe and some wiki famdom notes on the characters and write away.

[@atyl_]

The hard part is often times with these big budget adaptations there are corporate executives who are less invested in the source material that give absolute directives about certain things that have to happen, and then the showrunners/writers are forced to work around that. So I wouldn't blame the person who really loves the books, but instead try to understand that they are probably working under difficult constraints. However, that doesn't excuse everything

[@jolabrese]

@@atyl_ I understand that as a reason but do not accept it. All good writers have constraints and practice writing with a variety of constraints. Fridging a character is, among other things, the epitome of lazy writing. There is nothing in season 2 that has shown the writers are different than season 1. Just think of how critics are talking about this, most of the time, they are telling we watchers that we need to think of this show as the same story in a different multiverse (though not in those words). When you have to make that kind of leap to accept the story, then it is a very different story, and in this case, feels like fan fiction.

[@gearomkologenas5458]

Stop with this Episode jonesing already. It doesn’t need 12 Episodes. It needs better filmmakers. Writers? Poor. Directors? Destitute. Producers? Depraved & Indifferent. I feel sorry for the Actors. On the other hand, if this show gets cancelled, as it definitely should, I will sorely miss the comedy of the various pretzels in the comments twisting themselves into desperate mouthpieces of praise and arbiters of what constitutes valid criticism. So… put your hands together for Season 3. Eight pending Episodes of fantastic Glee.

[@MSpotatoes]

8 more episodes from showrunners that failed to understand the source material or don't care. The show is unwatchable.

[@gregowen2022]

Rafe "Balefire" Judkins gives us a good illustration as to why you can't just tweak a few threads of an existing story without massive consequences. He makes a few changes in season 1 and now we are having to spend tons of time inventing new scenes to justify what he did while trying to keep the characters as they were in the books. I'm extremely negative on this show. It's a failed adaptation for me and they should have either told Robert Jordan's story or made up their own original, but this hybrid isn't working and feels like it's just using the books' name recognition

[@fallvegas]

I also don't think it helps when they use precious screen time on show only content.

[@marvinthemartian6788]

I agree wholeheartedly

[@jasonmelito]

A few changes?? Did you read the same books I did? They did a childrens edition. I think you read that version.

[@hatchetmouth8211]

At this point, I have zero doubt they are manipulating numbers to call this a 'hit' in any way.

[@Stonehorn]

@@hatchetmouth8211s1 episode 1-3 had a billion watch minutes. All of season 2 had 515 million minutes. It is not a success.

[@eyenuh300]

Was season 2 actually a lot better then season 1? Or did the first season just lower our standards.

[@Johankjellb]

Spot on That, combined with the fact that the horror that is the first season likely had most of us realize that this show is Wheel of Time in name only,

[@calebhoffman6368]

bingo

[@scottfree6479]

Season 2 was miserably bad. They aren’t including any of the book scenes, doing things that are entirely contradictory to the books, and generally just not telling the story of the Wheel of Time. Maybe some people will like it, but it isn’t WoT.

[@LAF.2]

It was better and Season 1 before COVID was good too.

[@dromo37]

👏👏 and no more Covud excuse

[@MRosen613]

The one thing i had wished this season had done was changed the Mat "escaping the white tower" plotline to the book 3 plotline of "escaping the white tower" which is a really fun, iconic, and fan favorite sequence. I really wish we had got that part

[@ThumbMerrilin]

My theory is they didn’t do this for one of two reasons. First possibility, the writers haven’t read as far as TDR and so were not aware there was a perfect in-book plot arc for Mat they could have used. Instead, they are making their own story up episode by episode, like a sitcom. Rafe told them Mat has to go to Cairhien then Falme, but not that there was a heroic way he could have done it from TDR. Second possibility, they knew about Mat’s TDR plot arc but didn’t care to use it, because they wanted his character dark, weak and useless for ‘reasons.’ And given they are saying S3 will be TSR, it suggests TDR will be skipped, meaning some of Mat’s coolest early scenes will also be skipped.

[@fenixchief7]

​@@ThumbMerrilin damn, that was too funny for something that is frighteningly possible.

[@cowboyboots9901]

The biggest problem with these series is they rely heavily on you knowing how and why from the books but then ignore the books and fall back on "it's an adaptation". If you by an IP with a massive and passionate fanbase you HAVE TO pay homage to the books and treat them properly. You can't be like Disney and throw away the Extended Book Universe and then steal from that universe as you go, either respect the material or write YOUR OWN story and create your own fanbase.

[@aldan7812]

They don't have more time Dan, they know that. So because that is the case, to decide to spend copious amounts of time on BS Liandrin backstories, or as you put it early - Lan pissing on trees, is why barely any of the ACTUAL main characters can be done any justice. It's a half-pregnant production, they clearly don't want to tell RJs story mate. They want to tell their own, but they don't have the balls to commit to complete abomination so they go with half abomination (from an adaptation perspective) and the result, is what you see - and when you sort of parse that out to the next book? Considering all the TDR things we just decided weren't important for the lads this season, it's going to be a poster-child for the word Disgrace. Imo, time will tell.

[@coyote271280]

I share your opinion, is clear to me they wanted to cut rand out of the story, but did not have the balls to commit to it.

[@Aerohead]

I think a simple thing they could have done was allow Egwene to link with Nyneave and be able to create the shield against Ishy through that. Power levels would be back to reasonable, would give Nyneave something to do while still illustrating her block, would have meant something that she got there just in time, would have showcased the "friendship" angle better, etc.

[@magister343]

I think it would make sense if being on both sides of an Adam also made Egwene a lot better at forming links than she otherwise could have been.

[@weirdo56]

Or they could’ve let nynaeve and Elayne meet with Perrin earlier and help free egwene and egwene killing renna(to give egwene a bigger moment). Elayne heals rand and rand fights ishy like he did in the books (doesn’t have to be In the sky) and moiraine unsheildes Rand allowing him to fight ishy. Everyone sees rand fighting ishy. And moiraine can still summon her fire dragon. Mat gets his moment by blowing the horn This way everyone has something to do and the power scaling system isn’t destroyed (There is no reason to justify Egwene holding a shield against ishy it just isn’t possible) There was no reason to give what nynaeve,Elayne,and rand did in TGH to egwene. Rafe has the audacity to say it’s all about them not just rand when he made it all about his favorite character egwene

[@magister343]

I consider killing Renna to be a big mistake, because the actress who portrayed her gave a better performance than anyone on the show except for Lanfear. I really wanted her to stick around next season. I probably would have merged her character with Egeanin.@@weirdo56

[@KingOfMadCows]

They could have also had some heroes of the horn show up to hold Ishamael off. Heck, give Ishamael a couple of lines of dialogue with Artur Hawkwing where Ishamael taunts Hawkwing about turning him against the Aes Sedai and using his Seanchan descendants to conquer the world for the DO.

[@veiled33]

@@weirdo56 "(There is no reason to justify Egwene holding a shield against ishy it just isn’t possible) " Your earlier comments I think I agree with, but this is silly. Ishy is obviously playing with her, but Egwene isn't weak in the power, regardless. It's believable she could hold up against him playing games with her.

[@abigailesquivel3458]

The thing that upset me the most is the fact that it was such a big deal in the books that Perrin was NOT the person who killed Lord Bornhald, like to the point that there are several points of conflict and resolution around this singular point during the end game books. I feel like it was such a slap in the face to have not only Perrin be responsible for directly killing Lord Bornhald but also having Dan see it.

[@wxywawjy626]

So they made Perrin kill his wife and Lord Bornhald. Hmm interesting. Maybe the writers didn't like his character in the books so they made him a killer? To make him have conflict? Idk

[@ethanhypes2657]

Thank you!!!!

[@davister84]

Yeah but that was pretty weird and didn't make a lot of sense. Like the Gawyn "Rand you killed my mother!" Trakand thing, it wouldn't work on TV to have a bunch of terminal grudges because someone heard a rumour once

[@ener11454]

This was never a big point of the books, you have massively misinterpreted this. Also for the idiots that don't understand this Perrin kills his wife in the series because his overprotectiveness and struggles in general in his relationship with Faille and his relationship with violence are almost all internal in the books and this one act explains both things to viewers in the show. It is one of the better adaptation choices I've seen in any show in recent years. People who complain about this are coming at it from a pure point of ignorance.

[@wxywawjy626]

@@ener11454 well you must be a joy to be around. Name-calling won't make your point come across better :)

[@yasielromero8236]

I agree this season is an improvement on yhe first one. I certainly felt myself more invested. Even when I was racking my brain trying to figure out where they were going with the changes from yhe book it was still something that I got enjoyment out of. I've only now reading book 4 but enjoying the saga a lot I also want to add that i can't get out if my head the moment when Brandon said he had been waiting over 20 years to see that fight Rand has in the sky and now there just isn't, and I felt that, even though I haven't been waiting 20 years 😅

[@ngrans3361]

I think it's longer than 20 years. And I'm dejected even more than Sanderson.

[@murlend8455]

Also are we going to address the fact that the Borderlanders + Loial were clearly depicted as dead at the end of season 1??? Including Loial being stabbed in the HEART by the Aridhol dagger. I remember being so upset with the end of season 1 purely because of this but then we cut to them all just perfectly fine and chasing after Padan Fain in season 2. Like did Perrin learn to channel lmao

[@weirdo56]

It’s hilarious how they didn’t even bother explaining.

[@Johankjellb]

@@weirdo56 They even doubled down showing the dagger melting people in the finale in s2 xD

[@quagsoul]

Watching S1 and finding it to be "not that bad" made me start reading the books. I'm now a little halfway through the final book and man...even from the end of book 1 I could see how many problems the writers had dug themselves into, meaning a lot was going to be changed. I watched about half of the first episode of S2 having read about 5 of the books and just closed it. While I have a lot of issues with certain aspects of the books, there's too many changes to characters and arcs that I just can't bring myself to slog through any more of Amazon's slop. It's definitely one of those "Based on..." shows.

[@davidbowles7281]

But even with two books, you can see how long-winded Jordan is. His work is unusable for a TV version. Jordan wastes a lot of his audiences' time.

[@Dooger414]

​@@davidbowles7281 Then DON'T ADAPT. I'll take a long-winded Jordan chapter on what Egwene is wearing/ what the molding of the room looks like over an Amazon Prime Egwene that contradicts their own rules for the collar. You gave a HUGE reason why this was to fail from the start. Their changes made it WORSE btw. This isn't excusing how much this failed.

[@baldingape]

@@davidbowles7281 Being long-winded in print makes it *easier* to adapt, not harder. More description of dress, place, emotion? Those things do not take up screen time. What eats screen time is events and actions (and, to a lesser extent, interior of the mind). So much of what Jordan writes about that interior of the mind is so repetitive it mitigates how difficult the adaptation is of all that interiority. Then, add to that the absurd number of minutes the show *completely wastes* by putting its own content in that does not work well (Lan / Moiraine conflict, so much attention spent on warders that does literally nothing to move the plot or advance the characters or our understanding of them, then entire bit with Moiraine's family struggles...I could go on). If you want to adapt a work that is as rich in lore, events, and characters as the Wheel of Time, you either have to not give a fig, or you have to be efficient with your use of time. The bald absurd inefficiency of use of time points very strongly towards not giving a fig, or being incompetent, or both.

[@pedanticperson1149]

Re: the importance of friends - a problem I have with the show is they're trying to have this as a theme without doing the legwork for it, in the books it worked because of everything that came before, but in the show they're diverging from the source material so much that they can't do that. They're trying to skip to the end with so many things & it just rings hollow. Re: Rand & it not really being his story - as above, this only works as a theme if the work is put in, by making Rand unimportant in the story the whole lesson is lost. Where is the pressure on him to be the Dragon Reborn, the only hope of the world or its damnation? If they establish the power of friend is the solution at the start then they'll need a better arc for him to follow that doesn't have him somehow unlearn that lesson. So I disagree with you on how they're treating Rand & his arcs, they should have established him as the most important character around which everyone else revolves, as that way people will actually care about his character & the Dragon Reborn as a hero or threat. As it is, they've not developed him, the prophesies, etc enough so I have to wonder why should anyone care about him at all? I think you're going to be sorely disappointed if you think season 3 is going to suddenly start focusing on Rand, why would it? It is similar to what people were saying at the end of season 1, that they were sure that Rand would be developed in season 2, but by the end it's clear he wasn't. This isn't an accident, this is by the design of the showrunner who was clear what his goals were re: the series. He's just going to be a tool that's moved around for Moiraine & others to use after their characters get him where they need him to be. Re: 12 episodes - More episodes isn't going to help when they waste so much of the time they have been given on nonsense, if they were given more episodes then they would feel more comfortable adding even more of their own crap in there. Seriously, do you really believe that if they were given 4 more episodes that they would devote any of them to developing Rand & Mat & Perrin or would they be used to further the showrunners vision of what the books should have been? Re: Egwene - the performance is good, but the story is the problem as she shouldn't have been able to achieve what she did, she would have died first. That's why I can't like the character or the way they're developing her, I just can't set aside all the inconsistences they're introducing for the sake of getting their little moments in (at the expense of the overall story & development of Rand & others). As for a supercut of all the characters arcs, that would certainly be interesting & illustrative. Re: Moiraine/Lan - Their whole arc was pointless fluff meant to keep them in the show when they weren't really in the books at this point, I think we're going to see more of this because they're not going to be able to get away from the fact that Rosamund Pike is the lead actress for the show. They're trying to get to a place where Madeleine Madden will take her place, but it's all at the expense of develop Rand & other aspects of the story, so things are going to be messy. Re: Once a darkfriend, always a darkfriend - that's going to be a little awkward for Min going forward, isn't it? Re: The Horn & Moiraine's family drama - you've hit upon the problem with the show with this part, the writers are more interested in telling their own little dramas than they are with adapting the series. In adapting the Great Hunt they left out the actual hunt for the horn & any sense of urgency or why it was so important. Rather than say what they should have done, you need to recognise what they did do & why.

[@waylander9265]

Regarding Rand and the Power of Friendship theme; this idea probably would have been much more effective if they had taken the Dragon Reborn plot and have Rand go off on his own to force the prophecies to come true. It’s much more meaningful for a character to abandon his friends only for them to chase after him and save him, rather than them all randomly stumbling together. The former highlights the friends’ determination and strength of bond, the latter is a matter of coincidence and convenience, it lacks emotion and fell flat in the show. In regards to Egwene, her freeing herself by pulling herself up by her own bootstraps goes directly against the aforementioned theme of the power of friendship. Rand might need friends to help him, but Egwene can do it all by herself.

[@jaginaiaelectrizs6341]

@@waylander9265 She couldn't do it literally all by herself, though-it's not as if she's the one who killed the Forsaken. Rand's friends and other allies helped him, and then because they helped him, he was also able to turn around afterward and help them right back just when they were all about to be overcome. She stalled the Forsaken, but was ultimately beginning to wear down and lose out, thus she did not do it all by herself just because she managed to follow through on doing one particular thing by herself that she had vowed she would do rather than merely lobbying empty threats around like an impotent child. But maybe that's just my own way of looking at it. 🤷‍♀️🤷 🙂

[@IanGroe]

@@jaginaiaelectrizs6341 I think the issue is that Egwene should not have been able to hold off Ishamael(literally as strong as possible for a ‘human’) for such an insane amount of time. Nynaeve was said to be many times more powerful than her and they had her just sitting right there doing absolutely nothing. They could have had Egwene giving everything she had and being able to hold him off a respectful amount of time until Elayne and Nyneave came up the stairs. At that point Nyneave could have assisted or taken over, and that would still leave Elayne to heal Rand and have that moment they focused on.

[@jaginaiaelectrizs6341]

@@IanGroe Well, perhaps it was because she's Ta'veren in the tv series[ despite not being so in the books] and can do whatever she needs to even if she shouldn't be able to? (I'm not in the writers' or showrunner's minds, so I can't tell you why they did or didn't make that decision. I can only speculate on possibilities.) Lol People are actually complaining that she collared the one who collared her and thus didn't need to be rescued, long before Ishamael even arrived on that tower, though. Nyneave is said to be more powerful, yes, but is also well-established as lacking voluntary control over when and how that power does or doesn't come out. (I'm not saying I agree that it shouldn't have come out involuntarily in this particular situation, but at least there is some in-universe reason why it's not predictable when Nyneave's power does or doesn't manifest.) It was also established that Nyneave is rather afraid of being unable to control her powers and thus for the most part is too petrified to even try and use them most times because every time she does attempt to she can't control it particularly well and negative things tend to happen. Egwene was also called incredibly powerful though, this season-just supposedly not as powerful as Nyneave, so she was overlooked by the Aes Sedai previously, but Egwene was still powerful enough to stand out in the eyes of the Sol'dam(? or whoever her captors were?) at least when Nyneave was not there beside her to overshadow her by comparison. And, unlike Nyneave, Egwene spent a notable amount of time actively training to master more intentional control. I never said I thought everything unfolded exactly how I might have preferred to see it unfold-I only said that, whether you believe Egwene should have been able to pull off all of the feats that she managed to in the ways that she did or for as long as she managed to or not, she still didn't do literally everything all by herself(so I don't know if I agree that it does actually undercut entirely the theme of friendship and unity saving the day or whatever). I actually do agree that more of the characters should have done even more to chip in here and there in that last conflict, though. I just don't think that it makes absolutely zero in-universe sense why they didn't, whether I agree that made the story play out in the most satisfying way it possibly could have or not. (It also wasn't even Egwene who freed Rand from having his powers suppressed or his body restrained-that was Moiraine, who only managed it with Lan's help boosting her morale when she needed it and physically covering her back so she was free to focus on the task that only she could pull off. And it wasn't Egwene who healed him either-that was Elayne, and Elayne was only able to get there at all with Nyneave's help. So the whole thing really was a group effort. Whether it was exactly the kind of group effort in exactly every way that people feel it should have been or not.)

[@bidossessi]

​@@jaginaiaelectrizs6341"ta'veren" doesn't mean anything in the show. Nobody's ever described it and its effect is unknown. So it's pointless to refer to it as a plot device. If it ever gets explained in future seasons, it would still be too late to help in making sense of this one.

[@stephenking1218]

Daniel, you keep beating the 12-episode drum, and I soundly disagree. Lazy writing is lazy writing, and all that a looser word count restriction gives you is the opportunity to be even lazier. You CAN tell a story in 8 episodes. A story that is poorly told is 8 episodes isn't ever going to be better by extending it to 12. I mean, would I prefer 12 well-written episodes? Of course I would! But going from 8 to 12 episodes isn't going to fix what is wrong with this.

[@LrnecBuma]

Im torn on the 12 episode drum. Its like they fear they will be cancelled so the fill the show with multiple plots. They are doing book 4 in S3. That means the characters are 3 seasons in where we don't have the friends spend time with each other because they are off again. And they squandered the early season opertunitys so they need to put more later now.

[@Swiergotka78]

But how can you be sure it's "lazy writing"? Maybe they just don't want to cut too many iconic things I.e. butcher the books, but instead try to get them fit within the constraints of 2 books per season and added plots for actors so they can be kept on retainer for 10+ years. We know many scenes have been cut, so there's that too.

[@stephenking1218]

@@Swiergotka78 Well, for one thing, I am a writer, so I'm pretty confident in my ability to recognize lazy writing. Second, Daniel has asserted that the show suffers from lazy writing several times, including in this very video. I'll give you the point that perhaps "lazy" isn't the most accurate pejorative to use, but it's more descriptive than mere "bad" and gives more credit to professional writers than "incompetent." While I'm also willing to accept that what you list may in fact be motivations behind the laziness, at the end of the day they're not telling compelling stories, which is the whole, entire, #1 primary job of a writer.

[@Florkl]

@@Swiergotka78I mean, the whole Warder episode in season 1 was an entirely original thing, implying the writers felt they had more episodes than they needed to adapt the book.

[@loxodoncyclotis1823]

Sure, more episodes isn't a cure-all. But keep in mind that this show's core cast is composed of (at least) 7 characters, who frequently get separated : there's simply no way that all of them could get enough development in only 8 episodes. To make this show really work without adding more episodes they'd have to push some characters aside, or radically change the story to make them stick together a lot more.

[@Macapta]

I said it before and I’ll say it again, ANIMATION IS THE WAY TO GO! Also it’s a shame there aren’t any animated shorts like the first season.

[@hannahbrennan2131]

I couldn't agree more. With live action, there's only so much you can do visually. With animation, the possibilities are endless. It really sucks how little respect animation gets in the West.

[@reidchikezie1161]

You read my mind!

[@IdentityAJB]

This ☝️ fantasy adaptations should be animated and not live action

[@Johankjellb]

Give it to Fortiche and have them do it Arcane-style, with the only instruction being "Don't change what don't need hekkin' changin'!"

[@ThumbMerrilin]

@@Johankjellbcan you imagine Arcane quality animation paired with the WoT storyline? It would be epic and I think easily draw in an audience even bigger than the current live action, especially in Asia were animation is massively respected as a medium.

[@thomasedwards6641]

They really should have had Nynaeve and Elayne rescue Egwene on the tower and have Egwene and Elayne join to hold off Ishamael while Nynaeve heals Rand. Also they needed the battle in the sky was so disappointing it didn't happen.

[@katemoon1594]

Ooh, yes. After being reminded of how that unfolds in the books, I feel that the original emotional beats & actions of rescuing Egweyne are far more compelling than what we saw in the finale! I definitely think there was something lacking in the concluding confrontation with Ishamael, too. I did not enjoy the "shielding Rand" tactic with the Seanchan offshore. It felt like a very lazy writing choice & just wasn't exciting to me at all. Lol.

[@chrisf2636]

@@katemoon1594 reading this and dealing with some kiddo school issues. The writers remind me of many boys in elementary school who just keep breaking all the rules set before them while still trying to follow the latest rule given.

[@katemoon1594]

@chrisf2636 There were at least a few episodes that I was thankful for whoever was on the writing or directing team. There were still a lot of issues within the series for me, but there were some highs. And I totally get what you mean.

[@KizzMyAbs]

I’m surprised those woke incompetent writers didnt centre the show around the women. Utter trash

[@pIayingwithmahwii]

@@katemoon1594 i mean first of all show Ishamael by himself should be more than capable of taking care of show Rand, but I suppose he's not Demandred and doesn't Really care about "winning fairly," so I can let it slide. But yeah Daniel's skit said it best tbh. And he left out the biggest thing too! Shouldn't Balefire be able to slice through Any shield that Any channeler could ever hope to put up, and slice through that shield even easier than a lightsaber slices through younglings? it's been many years since i've read the books, and i forget many of the Dark One's orders. I know at some point in the series he commands all his channeler followers to use as much friggin' balefire as is humanly possible. but i also seem to remember at the beginning the Dark One might've issued standing orders not to use it at all? unless i'm mistaken.

[@Haxerous]

They don't deserve 12 episodes when even with such a limited run time they chose to put in random filler and nonsense side quests that go nowhere. There's nothing in this show to make me feel like they would utilise the extended run time effectively and efficiently. They even got longer episodes this season and didn't do a whole lot with it. Season 1: 4/10 Season 2: 5/10 Both with garbage finale of 3/10. There is an improvement this season but I wouldn't recommend the show to anyone in my family or my friends.

[@KingDueceND]

Calm down with your second account Danny Boy

[@georgeeast5502]

Agreed, I was blown away with how much useless filler there was in season 2. I felt like everything important that happened could have fit 2 episodes. And yet they have the audacity to say they have to cut great stuff from the books for time constraints to adapt it. Then they turn around and give us fanfic Liandrin backstory, fabricated beef between Lan and Moiraine, Mat getting high, and 2 hours of Alanna and her warders making sex jokes. Instead of Rand vs Turak, or Rand vs Ba'alzamon, or Rand playing the Game of Houses in Cairhein, or Rand and the Portal stones, or Rand at all. Thanks Rafe. Season 1: 4/10 Season 2: 3/10 Finales are 1/10. I'd literally rather watch Game of Thrones Season 8.

[@bigjonS4]

Seems there are downsides to casting an (arguable) A-lister into a minor book role.

[@eventhorizon17]

Over the years, I find I was too hard on Legend of the Seeker. I hate that the bar has been lowered this far.

[@marocat4749]

I mean, the show is fun, and darken rahl is very fun. And sam raimi knows his campy adventure with a good cast

[@andrewdemarco3512]

nah, LotS is waaaay worse than this

[@belegur8108]

@@andrewdemarco3512 if you look at the charakter arc of Cara, than LotS is Oscar material in comparison to any arc here in WoT

[@stevenrockett2181]

After finishing the season, I decided to re-read the books to "cleanse the palette". I just finished the scene between Moraine and Adaleas (sp?) talking about the horn. They could have added a bit more lore (doesn't have to be the dragon, the horn is tied to the blower until he/she dies) and it would have set up the scene for Mat to blow and foreshadow future payoffs.

[@prometheusproton3886]

Just hit that chapter in TGH too, forgot how good the early books really are (the TGH chapter with that “crystal ball statue” hits way harder during a re-read)

[@stevenrockett2181]

@@prometheusproton3886 exactly! I didn't remember how frightened Lanfear was when they were there. Makes so much more sense now.

[@olorin3815]

setup ? foreshadow? payoff? this show doesnt do that

[@prometheusproton3886]

@@stevenrockett2181 “Oh shit he might accidentally break the world again rn”

[@arenkai]

Complete improvement over Season 1. Still not good enough. I loved your viewing of the episode with Sanderson and Dusty ! But I think next time you guys should watch the episode in advance because having Brandon knowing everything in advance and trying to discuss it while you and Dusty were trying to watch the episode was something frustrating because I wish you'd engage more with Brandon, he had SO MUCH to say haha ! Definitely do that again sometime though, it's a great idea.

[@hellgast0]

Yea definitely, it would have been more enjoyable to the viewer as well.

[@mistersl8647]

As someone who read the books the biggest hurdles for me are 1.) the amount of unnecessary changes and clear deviations from the books - I understand book adaptations need changes to fit into a cinematic format but WOW. 2.) the lack of detail and nuance - part of Jordan's genius was the level of detail he provided to explain the complex and nuanced dynamics he played with in the story - the nature of the one power and how its channeled, the lore of the land, the differences in the cultures, relationships between characters, etc.. IMO we get almost none of this. 3.) just plain bad writing when it comes to handling significant events - introduction of Lanfear, Egwene getting captured, how the Horn was recovered, Rand's progression towards a blade master, Perrin's journey as a wolfbrother, almost anything related to Matt's character as well as Min's, the total mishandling of Padan Fain's character, etc... I think anyone who read the books gets where I'm going. Ultimately my biggest disappoint is that as someone who was extremely eager to see the WoT brought to television and after witnessing the amazing job HBO did with GoT (regardless of the last 2 seasons). I find myself not being able to enjoy the ride so to speak. I find myself trying to find reasons to enjoy the show instead of just being able to enjoy it. If I hadn't read the books maybe this would be different. I think I'd still find too many holes in the telling of the story but at least I wouldn't have had a level of expectation that is not even close to being met.

[@adamglenen734]

Honestly the writing is barely better than a CW capeshit soap opera and that is just sad

[@trumanb4758]

You are absolutely right. The writers would have been able to accomplish way more of those things if they hadn't taken the arrogant decision to insert their own irrelevant side stories in there, taking up valuable run time.

[@tw7998]

Also a long term reader. When growing up i was obsessed and read the series a dozen times or more. I recently started a re-read and have to be honest book 1 feels like young adult and has a really messy ending. Book 2 is better but its book 3 before RJ seems to get into his stride. I think people put the series on a huge pedestal and forget it was not perfect- especially book 1 and books 7-10

[@robzs8388]

As someone who's read and reread them as as well over the past 25 years I don't understand this angle. Book 1 has a weird ending, that's it. @@tw7998

[@joshuatempleton9556]

@@tw7998 no book series is perfect and it was written in the early 90s during the dnd panic that is why he avoided calling it medieval fantasy. the ending of book 1 is not messy, the whole point of what happens at the eye of the world is to demonstrate just how powerful the dragon reborn is. it is a foreshadowing of the last battle and other feats that Rand has to accomplish. it also shows an ability people including Sanderson missed. rand can see the dark ones taint on people, that is how he killed those dark freinds in the dragon reborn it was not psycho pathic slaughter but calculated self defense. by changing the Eotw they completely diminish what Rand is. by making Eqwene and Nynaeve Ta'veren and giving them rands accomplishments they remove any actual agency to the dangers of the dragon reborn.

[@necrolord1920]

Making more episodes is a common argument by you and others. I think that they could make do with 8 episodes if they focused on the plot instead of making the show into Rafe's personal fanfic.

[@goldielocks9092]

Disagreed

[@tiger35jb]

More episodes would just mean more poor writing, more teen drama like altercations between characters, more Egwene is the greatest thing sense sliced bread, more male characters are weak and incompetent, more breaking the rules of the magic system, more crap on top of crap.

[@zonto636]

I agree. 8 episodes should be fine if they just focus on the plot. Just look at Jackson LOTR, 550ish minutes for the theatrical version. Season 2 of The Wheel of Time is around 480 minutes. Seeing as the longest WOT book is shorter than the LOTR book trilogy, this should be a sufficient amount of time. I am not sure why Rafe is so opposed to just adapting the books...

[@prometheusproton3886]

It would still feel rushed I think but I’m damn sure it would be better than what we have now

[@OtherTheDave]

That’d certainly help… I might even agree if they were doing 1 book per season.

[@NimmelTheGreat]

I think if they had 12 episodes they would have filled them with more side tangents that don't need to be in the show. It's true that 8 isn't enough but even then they didn't use those 8 even kind of efficiently, instead having weird side plots. There was more than enough time for Rand to get some on screen sword lessons for one thing.

[@davidbowles7281]

I don't want to see Rand doing anything, really. Rand is boring.

[@cmike123]

They probably would have written in a scene where Rand and Perrin learned how delicious ham sandwiches were or some bs.

[@NimmelTheGreat]

@@davidbowles7281 Yeah, that's kinda the problem. Seems like it could be fixed if they actually did something with him and will never be fixed if they don't.

[@zeningren8648]

They have really skipped a lot of characters and their storylines, like Thom and Domon

[@cmike123]

@@zeningren8648 Bayle showed up, but just as a courier. They are really missing out on some good characters.

[@sadiedew3060]

Thank you Daniel for being honest. Yes, there is nuance and nothing is all good or all bad. But as an avid fan of the WOT, from the beginning, I am absolutely sad about what Amazon has done to my baby and it hurts when other supposed fan sites praise this mess (as it seems to maintain some kind of connection to the producers of this mess). It was painful for me to watch this. Yes, 2 was better than season 1 but even so, only a 4.5 for me and a 3 for season 1. Respect to you. Thanks for all you do for our community. And yes, Sanderson is a true icon and I loved your live video with him. Who, with this type of status else does something like this? I love his fan engagement. ❤️

[@ozmanoshe]

I wonder if Rafe and Amazon will rap Brandon over the knuckles for his take on the finale and if they'll try and muzzle him from doing this again or tell him he can only say nice things.

[@davidbowles7281]

@@ozmanoshe How would they do that?

[@ozmanoshe]

@davidbowles7281 update his contract and threaten him with legal action. Doesn't have to stick, just has to make him worry about ongoing legal fees.

[@st4rbuk]

When you make repeated changes to the story it no longer becomes Jordan’s work. You can’t make all these changes and still make it make sense. It’s too disjointed with all these changes.

[@bigjonS4]

It’s incoherent. Even if the show is wildly different it still needs to be internally consistent. It isn’t.

[@ArchlordZer0]

I also just want to point out that having more episodes with incompetent writers will ultimately be a waste. As a comparison, Denis Villeneuve managed adapt the first half of one of the most complex books ever (Dune) in 2 1/2 hours, which is roughly the equivalent of 2 episodes runtime. If you don’t have good people working on a show, then no amount of episodes is gonna make a difference. Shows like the WoT and the Witcher have the same issue and that’s people who don’t respect the material are the ones adapting it. Rafe Judkins is not interested in adapting the books, but instead just wants to make his own story and use the WoT branding and ideas. He’s basically pulling a Terry Goodkind. And Amazon is not interested in pouring the necessary resources needed to properly adapt a WoT show.

[@fetchyryu]

lets not get carried away with reading into rafes goals like that. His interpretation of season one was grounded until barney harris up and left. Its not like we can be certain that he set out into season 2 with the philosphy “this is MY show i do what i want”. When one of your leads quits mid season, its gonna throw off your planning for a bit. We have no idea how different season 2 would have turned out if that hadnt happened

[@ArchlordZer0]

@@fetchyryu I used to buy that excuse, but S2 dropped the ball on the finale as much as S1 did. So this excuse that the only reason the show faltered was because of a lead leaving is up for debate. Instead of Matt starting at the tower, he would probably have just went with Perrin to get the horn. I doubt that would have changed much in the way S2 was structured.

[@fetchyryu]

@@ArchlordZer0 went with perrin? Leaving together from two different countries? Im not attributing all of the shows shortcomings to mat leaving S1 learn to read jfc. I’m saying a good portion of the reason that the plots differ so wildly is because mat left s1, and that we shouldnt place all of that on Rafe’s ego

[@jayrose8869]

@@fetchyryuYou think one person leaving the show somehow changed the script??? Let’s not act like he had a whole lot to do. Even in season two he’s locked up most of the time. 😅

[@fetchyryu]

@@ArchlordZer0 structurally mat not being in shienar changes quite a bit. If Mat goes to shienar, then its very likely rand doesnt have the whole “tell everyone im dead” arc Which of course leads to just a wildly different s2 for all 3 taveren, if not much different for the girls Maybe we’d even have hurin :’)

[@quashmonkey]

I dont think you can blame the run time. Its the producers fault for not planning for that, have a look at One Piece adaptation. They went fully into the source material over 8 episodes and didnt end up tripping over themselves like Rafe and his team have. Other series which did adaptations well was GOT and The Expanse. Rafe and his team are just muppets for the decisions they have made, when they could have been much more true to the material and likely would have made a more successful show.

[@vizion007]

I gave up on the convulted storyline, characters, I found myself forcing myself to watch to get involved, but I could not continue or endure. In the meantime, I ended up watching Blue Eyed Samurai, and it was light-years ahead as far as writing, characters, storyline and graphics was spell bounding. Save yourself the frustration and check it out.

[@hellgast0]

I'm gonna be honest, I am pretty much a show hater, I don't really see any redeeming qualities in the show and I probably never will. Regardless I still like to see other peoples opinions on it and engage in respectful arguments. I know my opinion can be inflammatory, since I absolutely hate anything about the show, but I'll never say that you or anyone can't enjoy the show, just as long as people are honest about it and are not trying to gaslight.

[@journeysands2622]

Then I suggest for your health you don't watch further seasons lol. Life is too short to be annoyed with a tv show😂

[@Dekken88]

I have a similar position. They completely ignore the books and the lore - it might be a good show if You can divorce it from the books. I cant and dont want to. This is most likely the only WoT show we will ever see - I wanted it to be WoT - not another turning of the wheel but the story of Robert Jordan. At least in spirit. For those who like it - good for you and have fun. But I cant help hating it.

[@FatalxBlade]

@@journeysands2622 to be fair he did say he enjoys seeing other people's reactions to the show. So, I think if he wants to hate watch it to join the conversation that's fine. No need to belittle him with the life comment and mocking emote.

[@hellgast0]

​@@journeysands2622I would agree, but it's the gaslight part of my comment that brought me back, seeing so many people rave about it and say how much better season 2 is I just needed to see for myself and the disappointment was immense. The show imo not only fails to deliver anything resembling the wheel of time, it actively tries to do the opposite.

[@hellgast0]

​@@Dekken88100% how I feel. I'm more sad than angry with the show.

[@katemoon1594]

While I can totally understand how adding extra episodes could provide a chance for their storytelling to evolve.. I feel like they haven't been making the best choices of what to share with the audience. I feel like they're usually trying to explain something to me that would've been more interesting to show me. And what they do show confuses me half of the time because I'm not clear on how a character is feeling or how they're being impacted by their circumstances. The show just feels so messy and incoherent sometimes. I would appreciate more clarity and depth from the story. Season 3 might be a make or break for me. I did start reading the series in order to enjoy the story more (*sigh* - lol). And I am enjoying the books. I just wish I enjoyed the show to the same degree! This season was definitely overall much better. However I agree with the sentiment that they need to improve the sense of timing, stakes, and thematic relevance to the show overall. There were a lot of characters "motivations" that felt either inconsistent or unclear to me. And it was hard for me to follow the sequence of events at times. Which hindered any potential growth for the characters I think. Anyway, it's been fun to think about and reflect on ways the show could've been changed & improved. And also great to share excitement for what moments I enjoyed. Even with the improvement though I am still hesitant about the next season. Really appreciate the video, Daniel! Thanks for sharing your ranty thoughts with us!!!

[@jamesalexander958]

Yeah instead of cutting and making smart choices with the story, they change character "focus" and added stuff. I don't see how twelve episodes can help if eight are squandered each season

[@michaelmichaelson2014]

Yeah I feel like if they had four more episodes we would have mostly gotten four episodes worth of random Moiraine fanfiction, not a more accurate telling of the story. There are so many changes that weren't done in the interest of saving time that I don't see how more time would help.

[@katemoon1594]

@jamesalexander958 Right. I would be fine with more episodes if it was used to create more exciting setup & pay off for the show.

[@katemoon1594]

@michaelmichaelson2014 That is something that bugs me. The story felt really bloated in some scenes and storylines. I definitely think they could've used their time in a more effective way. All I really want is a compelling story with strong and exciting characters.

[@im1085]

If they had more episodes they might have to flesh out the male characters instead of writing fan fic for the female ones. thats the main issue with this show. the only storys they nailed this season were the 2 female ones while the basically ignored the male ones or did them horribly

[@ianohlander]

Maybe if they used the budgeted 8 episodes wisely instead of wasting some of that precious limited time on plots/characters who don't matter to the over all story (looking at Alanna/warders) I would agree more episodes would make a big difference. It would help. But at this point I don't trust the writers not to waste 30% of it on scenes, plots and characters instead of the main story and characters. The other issue is that as FANTASTIC as some of the writing and acting can be (to say nothing of the consistently good production team) is this simple fact: I don't trust the show runners to not sacrifice story, characters, plot or internal logic when it comes time to create a fanboi squee moment. Egwene and Renna at the end is a great example. Amazing scene. Absolutely a contradiction of the entire premise they took episode 6 to set up. Let alone Egwene holding off Ishamael. And no, I don't buy external apologia by fans as to what was going on. Nope. Rafe wanted a badass moment that frankly was the equivalent of "memberberries" and so just made something transparently manipulative to do it. It or the Ishamael fight wasn't earned nor did it make sense in light of all the scenes of Rand getting shielded in previous eps. I don't think extra episodes can fix someone willing to fumble the landing for those fanboi squee moments.

[@t20sgrunt36]

8 episodes, or roughly 400 minutes (that is nearly twice the time of LOTR movies) is plenty of time to tell the story in a tight abridged version with some customizations. However, once they change the story and start adding all of these new arcs/scenes, you lost all time to tell the story. This really is only WoT by name. AS a book reader- If you can detach yourself from 30 years of super detailed world/lore information, you may enjoy the show. If you are a non book reader, I see people are kinda split from some liking it, to some being "meh, nothing special" to some not liking it.

[@MomoAfterDark]

I haven't read the books this is just garbage quality fantasy television.

[@micahdavis1369]

Something that sticks out to me is just how emotionally empty the ending is when compared to Great Hunt’s ending. A lot of people have brought up all the changes like “why was the hunt for the horn barely a subplot” “why did Egwene free herself when the whole point is that she can’t do it alone” “why did they get rid of the battle in the sky when that’s one of the best moments in all the books” and while that’s all fair I think it would’ve been ok if what they replaced that with at least resonated as much as Great Hunt did. At least for me, the end of Great Hunt felt like a massive shift in the story and the characters, it felt like Rand could no longer run from his destiny or his responsibility, it felt like the world of Wheel of Time just experienced a world changing event. It’s one of my favorite endings to a book, and at least for me none of that was translated well in the season finale. When I think of the end of season 2 I think “oh Egwene killing Renna was cool” or “Ishamael is such a great character” or other things that while are great while I’m watching the episode didn’t stick with me only a few weeks after it aired. I still think about the ending of Great Hunt and how impactful it was to the series and the characters. I have a feeling I’m going to forget the end of season 2 pretty soon.

[@tomm8120]

Yes exactly. I also really liked Rand's relationship with Ingtar, I feel like it really shaped his character moving forward. He felt as if he had to carry all these duties with the weight of a "mountain" and it contributed to his character a lot. Whilst Rand definitley had some soul searching this season, it was not enough when stacked with the emotional weight of the Great Hunt.

[@ryanoconnor7508]

Exactly, there was zero soul here. I'd rather the forsaken be the more off screen cheesy villains they were in the early books if it meant that the EF5 + Elayne had the realm development they should have. Egwene sacrifices herself fighting the damane so Elayne and Nynaeve could get away. Nynaeve and Elayne prove how much they care about her by staying behind and figuring out how to remove the Adam plus that suldam can channel. Rand goes on this Hunt when he doesn't want to because Mat will die if he doesn't get the dagger back. Aside from everything else he learned on the way when he sees Egwene and refuses to leave with the horn it's what prompts Ingtar to make his sacrifice and return to the light which in turn makes Rand willing to sacrifice in the fight against Ishy to save his friends and take his never healing wound and if course the pattern itself broadcasting that the dragon has been reborn. Instead we get an aes sedai trick to pronounce the dragon proving the whitecloaks are right. At this point I'm convinced that the show is one of Rands portal stone lives that doesn't end well and at the end of the series we will hear Rafe/Balzamon "I win again Lew's Therin" before the final fade to black.

[@chrisf2636]

You’ve asked questions that we don’t like the answers to or didn’t answer. You are now on the list. 😂😂😂 Excellent questions. Here’s my favorite though. If Mat was removed from Episode 8, why does Egwene need anyone else to end the season? (Needs Moraine for ships).

[@davidbowles7281]

@@ryanoconnor7508 Off screen villains don't translate to TV well. And the Forsaken are terrible antagonists in the books.

[@sadrien]

@@davidbowles7281 yeah the forsaken are actually better in the TV show.

[@Sageofthe16]

i hate how they just take liberties like crazy. this series was like a soap opera

[@veiled33]

The books were a soap opera

[@Sageofthe16]

@@veiled33 yes. it could have lasted 15 years

[@orcanimal]

If you think Amazon is gonna cough up the dough to do 10 episode seasons, let alone 12 episodes, you probably also believe Patrick Rothfuss has actually written that chapter and is gonna release it any day now, and that book 3 of the Name of The Wind is just around the corner...

[@mirra0arrim]

Been waiting for his third book since 5 years now 😅

[@orcanimal]

Consider yourself lucky then! Some people have been waiting for more than a decade...@@mirra0arrim

[@slasher42069]

The savageness of this take is breathtaking 😂 well played! 12+ years later and the guy still can't finish his own story.. poor Kvothe

[@ogar0524]

I am starting to think he found the 2 books unpublished at a yard sale and actually has no idea how to write the book. That or a relative didn't want the attention and passed away before they could write #3.

[@coyote271280]

He has the same dilemma than Martin and the next book of ASOIAF, they wrote themselves into a corner, now they have some options, publish whatever it is they come up with and face the music (probably disappointing a lot of fans) or make time and try to live to expectations, or die trying. It's funny that you can tell when an author did not even bother to create a proper outline of their series since the beggining and when they didn't. Robert Jordan did, Jim Butcher did; Martin and Rothfuss, evidence points to the contrary (they might have, but I don't buy it)

[@MrBellsa61]

12 episodes won't save this show from atrocious writing. It feels like a deranged WoT fan is writing the script and trying to cram all their favourite parts into the story at the expense of the actual plot. S02 was solid enough that I'll give s03 a try, but if they butcher the Aiel, my favourite part of the story, like they've done everything else, I'm out.

[@robinirie98]

8 episodes are enough if they stopped making shit up!

[@bigjonS4]

Definitely. It’s 400 minutes. The early books are pretty linear too.

[@3gappleprosync]

No number of additional episodes can take this show to another level. A new show runner and a new studio is what you need. Amazon and Rafe will continue to produce a CW level embarrassment in my opinion.

[@spacedoyster7686]

I don't think they'd do any better with 12 episodes, to be perfectly honest. The first season had 2 entire episodes dedicated to events that didn't happen to characters who weren't in the first book, and then one of the only episodes in season 2 was dedicated to a single, throw away line to a small thing that happened 'off screen.' They're not making good use of the time they do have.

[@justinalbin1091]

I'm really tired of hearing the "they need more episodes" excuse. Amazon isn't giving them more episodes. Rafe and Co. had to work within the time constraints they were given and they were all aware of the episode count they'd be limited to when they took on the job. Of course the show should have more episodes, but even if they got the 12 episodes everyone wishes for there still wouldn't be enough time to include everything and everyone would be saying the show needs 16 episodes. They had the task of trying to tell as much of this story as they could within the time they've been given and they've bungled it horribly. I think you'd be hard pressed to find a single person who honestly thinks the time spent on Moiraine, Lan, Alanna and her warders was a better choice for the precious, limited time allotted to them than all of the things from books 2 and 3 they could have included instead.

[@Vradica]

I had a very different view than you did when comparing it to the books, none of it felt better or even equal... However as a seperate thing, I find it quite entertaining and the times I can't help but compare it feels tolerateable, which is a big step up from season 1. I also gotta say the whole "the story isn't about Rand" is getting old, I've seen that said so many times lately.. No it's not SOLELY about Rand, most stories are in fact never about just one person.. However no matter how you slice it wheel of time is mostly about Rand, one way or the other, he is the very center of the universe

[@mavsworld1733]

I had only read the first book before i watched the first and second season. After finishing I've started on the second book, and the main thing that i noticed is that they actually feel like friends in the books whilst in the tv show they seem like strangers.

[@Ellis_Hugh]

Don't let this abomination of a show ruin your experience of the books by putting these completely non-characters in your head. The books are magnificent, the show is poorly fabricated, ideologically-driven garbage that actively rejects every premise that makes the books great.

[@OrbitalGuitars]

I remember when I was younger watching Stargate SG-1 getting 20+ hour long episodes every year, and now here comes Amazon with "Best we can do is 8 episodes every other year". I'm enjoying the show, but even 10 episodes per season would make such a big difference in terms of pacing and coherence.

[@destro6971]

Chevron 7, locked!

[@bilbo1778]

Dude - I understand the sentiment but there's no comparison between a low-budget sci-fi show where the vast majority of the "alien" locales were filmed in the "exotic" forests of the Canadian PNW for free versus trying to produce an AA level production w/ Hollywood level cinematographer/crew/unions/etc. A better comparison might be the 2004 Battlestar Galactica series where we got very well produced/shot television on a modest budget and they managed to churn out 20 hr long episodes per year...

[@jaginaiaelectrizs6341]

I don't think most of those episodes were actually a full 60-mins long, once you cut out the commercial breaks, though.

[@SpiritStoneWarrior94-yx3gs]

​@bilbo1778 you're just being pedantic about the show named, and not the fact that they could definitely do 10 episodes at least as the main issue.

[@bilbo1778]

@@SpiritStoneWarrior94-yx3gs Well, sure - if it wasn't for the fucking Rings of Power show absorbing all Amazon Studios' available funding we probably could have received at least 10 eps. I was just making the point I don't want to return the cheaply produced sci-fi/fantasy TV shows from the 90s-early'00s as a solution for more episodes to be churned out within a single season...

[@billramsay7351]

You've hit the nail on the head inadvertently with the main failing of this show and that's that the strongest part of the show was Egwene's arc and not the Dragon Reborn who has been so reduced by the Hack and his team of terrible writers in favour of the Girl Boss who the Hack obviously wishes he could have made the Dragon in the show. What should have been a huge scene for Rand at the end is taken away from him and he is reduced to lying on the ground helpless while Girl Boss defends him. I love Egwene as a character and i think the actress playing her is superb but all of the other EF characters are reduced to playing second fiddle to her to all of their detriment. And it's not just Rand who is diminished. Nynaeve goes from being strong and resilient to completely ineffectual at the end and her healing Rand is inexplicably given to Elayne who should be fainting from blood loss due to the untreated arrow hole through her knee! Any good stuff with Matt is completely undermined by his ridiculous use of the Shadar Logoth knife of wildly varying power levels and the ridiculously poor implementation of the heroes of the horn. Is the show better than season1? Definitely. But given that season 1 was such a turd that's a low bar. Giving it 5 would be generous. A 4 and that's only because of episodes 3 and 6 and Lanfear

[@JoeAuerbach]

Yeah, the show was WAY too light on lore. my wife had no idea why Nynaeve couldn't channel. they didn't hit it hard enough. And the heroes of the horn FELT great, but there was basically no explanation of it.

[@davidpurvee9225]

Time the show wasted: 1) Liandrin befriending Nnyaeve and working on her block... only for her to not use said friendship to lure her to Falme and for Nnyaeve to still not be over her block when she most needed it. HORRIBLE WRITING! 2) All the Moraine's family drama that built up to this huge moment where her sister screams "What could be so important.... ". And instead of replying, "The fate of the entire world". She says nothing and that arc just ends... HORRIBLE WASTE OF TIME! 3) Saved the worst offender for last, all the wasted bantering between Moraine and Lan, throwing in the 3-way crew just because, all that angst, then it is just dropped and forgotten, (ohyou are better than me, see what i did there) STUPID AND BORING! Think of all the book lines and magic systems and world building that could have replaced that mess? Was season 2 better than season 1? Yes! Is any part of the show better than the story told in the book? NO!

[@coyote271280]

I have a question for you, that I would really like you to answer, this is 100% un-ironic and I swear that I am comming from a good place. Do you find any merit in watching the show as it is? Will you watch season 3? I watched season 1 and hated it, season two seems more of the same and not a course correction, regardless if it is better than season 1, the narrative is still the same and it is not in line with the books, which is what interested me to begin with. Season 1 of WOT was the straw that broke the camel's back for me, I simply stopped watching everything that was 'not made for me' or was not true to the spirit of it's source material. And that led me to find many new IPs and books, like Dresden Files and the Bound and the Broken, and a lot of Korean shows that are actually coherent, fun and entertaining. Also there is this show on Prime called Reacher, I think is one of those sleepers that people pass bcs there is not such a big fan base or not enough hype for it, but I watched it and fell in love with it. Highly recommended.

[@davidpurvee9225]

@@coyote271280 , I will keep watching. I am a diehard fan that will hope it gets better, but be there to watch it burn up if it doesn't. Either way, I'm pretty convinced this is the reader's one and only chance to see the story come alive.

[@Dixie866]

At this point, I have a hard time believing this show will go the distance. It’s like it’s trying to pander to the book veterans and new fans at the same time and doing neither very well. I’m also not a fan of how weak a lot of the male characters are portrayed, which seems like Rafe Judkins is more interested in hitting diversity quotas than respecting source material.

[@ryanoconnor7508]

It's a story filled with amazing female characters who do big things already and yet they refuse to let any of the men but critically Rand do anything. There's no way the writers wrote the final showdown with Rand awkwardly stumbling forward to stab Ishy while he did nothing and thought to themselves ok we nailed this absolutely Iconic scene and character defining moment for Rand that fans of the books have been dying to see. I can't interpret it in any other way at this point other than an agenda driven choice. In the books Asmodean helps Rand but Rand does amazing things on his own, the point being this series was never about Rand going to magic school but thats the excuse they are giving now. So mark my words it will be Egwene fightung Asmodean for the choedan Kal and then forcing him to train Rand as based on show logic of Rand can't do anything without a teacher how could he possibly beat Asmodean?

[@Dixie866]

@@ryanoconnor7508 The entire Falme section of the show was a mess. Rand had two epic parts in the proper story (book); his first real heron-level 1v1 with Turak then his prophecy-level battle with Ishamael in the sky. The Turak fight was a complete waste, they should have just written him out like they have with so many other characters. The show itself would have lost nothing if Turak didn't exist in this adaptation. Maybe they could have re-cast Suroth at the same time, because I don't think I've ever seen a more poorly cast and acted role in any show ever. The Ishamael "fight" was one giant middle finger to the source material. One of the main points of the actual story is that the Dragon Reborn must shoulder the weight of the world, but not lose himself in the process. His friends around him are what helped him through it. In the show, it's like they're trying to dilute the notion that the Dragon Reborn is one person and transform it into some kind of "super friends" group led by boss babes to show the incompetent men that they're leading the charge. Ishamael, who has been living in a cycle of immortal perpetuity as one of the most powerful channelers alive, directly backed by pure evil incarnate, is unable to best Egwene the girl boss. I just don't understand how a show of this level makes it through all of the different levels of productions and everyone along the way has been like "yup, that's a great adaptation. Nailed it."

[@trumanb4758]

29:42 For me, It's not so much the tying of the dagger to the stick that's the problem, it's the fact that the dagger then transforms into a light saber. That's the problem.

[@jaredouimette1]

The dagger transforming into alightsaber isn't my problem, it's that it doesn't fall off after the first thrust. That's why you don't tie a knife to a stick.

[@dromo37]

All of it is the problem and BS

[@Diegorskysp17]

While I mostly agree with EVERYTHING you said (I haven't even noticed they didn't really explain what's the big deal with The Horn lol I guess that's the problem of having book 2 relatively fresh in my memory), and they are the easy target, I do think you should not be blaming Amazon directly for the narrative and writing mistakes the show is making. While some of it must be (executive notes can be a b!tch), the overall structure of the season is on the showrunner. I don't think he's quite nailed down how to work within the 8 episode limit because it's the second time he has "wasted" time on stuff that takes big chunks of the season (including having to deal with stuff left over the last season), just to have the ending feel rushed in consequence. I don't think he needs to be booted (nor wish it), but I think a co-showrunner might be a good thing for the show going forward.

[@coyote271280]

While your assesment is absolutely correct, the showrunner is to blame for the final product, Amazon is still to blame for picking the showrunner. And it is not Amazon's first offence at that. Why would anyone spend billions of dollars in the 2 biggest fantasy IPs there are, and then attached inexperienced people to the projects? Even for a company that can make do without a return of investment on their own shows, it's just baffling business sense.

[@Diegorskysp17]

@@coyote271280 True, but, to be fair, that's not just an Amazon problem, but now a systemic one (it was part of the reason behind the strike, they are killing the "training grounds" for new showrunners). On the other hand, studios often greenlight shows based on a pitch and a "bible" of what is going to happen beyond the first season so, if they like that, the job is yours. And if the show is "profitable", then why change direction? But clearly, that simplistic reasoning shows that there's just business persons in charge, not creative types. As an aside, Rafe Judkins has had experience, if not as a showrunner proper, as a writer in other shows, so he definitely had more experience than the guys at RoP which, in my opinion, is quite a stronger show than WoT, despite its flaws (and this is where I disagree with Brandon Sanderson: making a show out based on a handful of pages of backstory is way harder than adapting finished books)

[@ArchlordZer0]

Season 2 has cemented to me that the show is doomed. People made excuses for the S1 finale blunder to COVID issues. But the S2 finale proved the real issue is incompetent writing and directing. Yes, there were some good moments in S2, but it was far overshadowed by the bad. I gave this show a second chance and it disappointed me all the same. Saying its better than S1 is like saying vomiting is better than diarrhea. There is ZERO chance they’re going do justice in adapting the rest of the books series with only 44 episodes left. Fool me once, shame on you - fool me twice, shame on me.

[@joakimnyback1931]

well said

[@gkt7412]

I’m Team Diarrhea

[@ArchlordZer0]

@@gkt7412 Nothing like a good leaky cleanse.

[@kalez238]

This show is a giant mess and an insult to RJ and his meticulousness. I stopped watching after s2 e2 because I could not stand it any longer.

[@jeremyvanneman8112]

35:57 I couldn't agree more here! I think this is the main reason why I won't even be watching reviews for season 3 - I really like getting to see moments from the books, but context matters. And the context is so inconsistent because of illogical and massive plot hole filled storytelling, that I can barely eek out the smallest bit of enjoyment about things that actually do line up to the books (like Egwene and Renna until the final episode). Lan telling Nynaeve his romantic "I'll hate the man you choose because he's not me..." Is loving in the books. He knows it would never work out, so even though he's indirectly telling her he has intense deep feelings for her, he would rather protect her from the disappointment that would be whatever they could have. It might be misguided, but it's intended to be affectionate. In the show he's just a straight up player. They bang, and he's like "well, too bad we can't bang more since you're a wisdom." And she's like, "well, I could give up my entire life and join a group I absolutely despise for hundreds of years just so we can be together for a few decades," and he's like "nope! See ya when I see ya, my fiery queen! BTW, thanks for the tip on how to do my job that I've been doing for 20 years, but somehow forgot how to do until you reminded me."

[@clivewhitely4315]

I am of the opinion I feel so cheated and underwhelmed by both seasons. I enjoyed the books so much and was extremely excited to hear when the screen rights were obtained. I eagerly explained the premise of the books at a dining event several years ago, and there was a lot of interest. But I feel ashamed I have mentioned it, although I have not seen the guess since then, I do not know I could show my face and possibly having to explain how bad the show is compared to the books, which I really do not want to do. I am no writer or expert of any kind, or know whether the series has been seen, but I would feel ashamed to think it was as a result of my comments being asked for the books /series title and refused to loan them to anyone or ever part with them at any price. The Other thing to add is that I was sad to hear when Robert Jordan had died and believed there would be no-more much less not be finished. However, my hopes were rekindled after hearing someone was lined up to finish the series who was highly regarded (never read any of his works). Although, from what I remember, lots of notes/source material were left I felt a distinct difference in the writing style and was left feeling empty as the essence had changed. I add this to say I equate this is akin to how the adaptation has changed the whole premis of the books and I view them in the same light. I may be a bit negative but there it is. Maybe I expected too much and a bit of a purest, but the LOTR was far better, as a result after several years had passed and technology, film making had improved, The only hope I can see is that this may occur for this film and justice could be paid to the original book but I may not be around to enjoy it.

[@kaitlin4u]

⁠@@clivewhitely4315 The show is actually pretty incredible if you know nothing about the books. I did not read the books and I am itchingggggggg for season 3. I LOVE the story line because I don’t know what I’m missing in the books 😂 The acting, videography and effects are all great. I have a feeling the guests you told would feel the same. It’s sad the original fans can’t enjoy it but at this point since it’s so clearly different I wish people could just disconnect from what they know and appreciate it for what it is. Maybe someone will make movies in the future accurate to the books but at this point it’s too late and I hope the hate doesn’t get future seasons cancelled 😔

[@clivewhitely4315]

@@kaitlin4u Your thoughts/comments are valid as you have not had the opportunity to read the books, as I have. As a result I can with may of the others, who have, can see all the changes or reworking that's been made which has made the series quite a departure from the original. It is just not an adaptation, ut a reworking. However, if yourself and others who have not read the books but, enjoy it for what it is I cannot and will not take that for what it is. But, if you do get the opportunity to read the books, I am sure you will see the difference. Happy reading to you and those do get the opportunity.

[@jeremyvanneman8112]

@@kaitlin4u I would argue (as a vfx supervisor and 10+ year veteran in the film industry) that the show is adequate at best. In season 1 there's not one aspect that truly shone. The writing was miserably terrible. The budget was blown on nonsense. The effects were hit or miss. The editing was hit or miss. The acting was hit or miss. The camera work was horrible despite being so close to great (and ditto for set design and costume design). Season 2 was a step up in most categories, but not all. The writing remained atrocious, with massive plot holes, horrible pacing, pointless scenes (and even entire plot lines), motivation that was extremely inconsistent, and climactic moments that were completely unearned. The camera work and effects got better (although still not great) as did the set and costume design. And still, the only things that were notably good were things pulled directly from the books. I don't say this from the perspective of a reader, but from the perspective of a professional critique. If you enjoyed the show, I'm glad you found something entertaining. I don't begrudge your fun. But from a critical perspective, it's not a great production. If not for the horrible writing, I would actually say it's great starting with season 2 - but writing is the core of any good production, and this seems more like a pretty ball of nonsense with some cool standalone moments. Final note - if you like the show, I'd definitely suggest reading the books. It's such a great experience to travel through such a remarkable and well thought out journey with the characters you've (roughly) been introduced to in the show, and explore a world much more vast and diverse than what the show has barely hinted at.

[@Stonehorn]

This show is just bad. It’s like Rafe killed, skinned, and tanned the Wheel of Time and draped it over his gaudy furniture.

[@jacobstamm]

Daniel’s flesh slowly rotting more and more in each new video thumbnail

[@LumenP1023]

Everyone in the comments below me pretty much sum up what I think. The show is bad, and the script writers, producers, and directors just do not appreciate the books for what they are. They either miss the point or are willfully ignoring the source material.

[@OSW2000]

Hey Daniel. Love your thoughts on the entire season. What are your thoughts about Ishamael's end or more specifically: do you think this understanding is plausible? (Regarding the "Illusion, how did you not see it?" line) BOOK SPOILERS BOOK SPOILERS BOOK SPOILERS For me, while i dont think the fight between Ishy and the EF5 was executed well, I had the impression the entire time that Ishy wanted to fake his death. For me, he realised that Lanfear made his plan, turing Rand in Falme, impossible with her own plans. Therefore, he fakes his death, disappears from the mind of both the main cast as well as Lanfear (and the other chosen), to execute the same plan, turning rand to the shadow, later. I understood his line "A simple illusion, how did you not see it?" as a jest for what he does in the future. Rand did not see the illusion Mat throws a spear through, but he also does not see the illusion that he later stabs with his blade, allowing Ishy to fake his death to come back scheming later. in this context, I also dont have as much a problem with that line as if he said it as a standalone. This fits with the character well, i believe, as he a) is alive until the very end in the books, b) is a briliiant schemer, who often fake dies to aid his plans in the book, even though most of the time involuntarily in the books and c) i believe has no problem conceding a lost battle and "giving over" a victory for gains later. While I think he made it a bit to obvious in the show that he intentionally lost and would have prefered it had he battled maybe Egwene linked with Nyneave and Elayne, who "fake beat" him, him intentionally losing and seeming to struggle works a lot better than him actually losing and dying both in context of just the show and in context with the books for his character. What do you think?

[@elliottslinn8102]

I’ve been working on the Books, I’ve gotten to 7, so I’m not a WoT expert - and I also read them many years ago - planned to finish the series, then life got in the way. I want to go back and read them all. Anyways, I just finished watching season 2 and I enjoyed it much more than S1. My main complaints aren’t anything with “this wasn’t in the book” (cause honestly I can’t remember). My complaints are more so just like “why” observations/thoughts. 1) why do none of the characters, mainly Perrin, never take a weapon after a fight? It’s like he Matrix downloads “how to use sword” instantly when he needs to use it, uses it, then drops it and continues on empty handed. I know he’s an axe man, but he never carries a weapon beyond the current fight. 2) I know it’s a struggle for Nynanve (sp) to channel, but it’s now feeling overplayed and I’m just annoyed by her “I won’t” - then epic power - then back to can’t do much. And in the last episode she straight pushes an arrow, fletching and all, through the girls leg as a Wisdom; like that’s the thing to do. Then they get up and it didn’t feel that impactful a wound. 3) Why is there any blood on clothing during/after a battle? I see some but for what’s taking place, the clothing is pristine. 4) It felt like during battles the “bad guys” would stand still to allow some dialogue. Episode 8, the Whitecloak spots Perrin and says “Two Rivers?” - and there’s this pause where the enemies chill to allow a little chat haha. 5) How come Lan doesn’t feel powerful? And where’s his colour changing/invisible cloak? When I first read Lan waaaaay back, I was like “man this guy is epic!” … but I don’t feel like it’s being delivered. I do appreciate his zen vibe in the show, and I really like the actor they got to play him - but he’s not feeling like the incredibly epic swordsman/king that I imagined or thought was written. I’m sure there’s more little things I’ll think of later, but I don’t want to continue harping on things I didn’t like or bugged me. Overall I REALLY enjoyed this season, so much so that I’m looking forward to S3, where after S1 I wasn’t even sure I wanted to watch again - hence my “late to the party” thoughts. I’m really enjoying the visuals of the magic. The clothing and sets are feeling more real and cool; more defined I guess. And I very much appreciate the darker, more mature, tone of S2 with some of the fight scenes. I would like more episodes - maybe 10, but I do feel the show stepped up several notches and I’m can’t wait for S3 now. Hey, Daniel, ps - I really enjoy your content. I first saw your videos where you did like a hero tournament, think it was Drizzt V Lan. Felt like Aragorn didn’t get as much love but he’s also not as superhuman as the other two. All that to say, thanks for what you do. Just some thoughts from an old guy. Cheers, all!

[@Bookofscrawls]

They film the first 6 episodes like they have 12 a season, and they just don't. There's interesting stuff earlier in season that in context of the whole season feels like an utter waste no matter how fun or cool it is in the moment, not to mention the useless stuff like tree pissing and all the time spent on warder drama.

[@bigjonS4]

It feels like episode 8 was written in total isolation from 1 - 7.

[@kiko42810]

while i do agree that maybe the show would be better if it got more episodes, i do have to ask; Why do you think one piece, something that covered a whole chunk of the story, while also adding their own "stuff" and changes to the source material(the garp stuff), was able to show a more coherent overarching story arc in its 8 episodes? also i do find it interesting that while one piece LA made changes to the source material, how were they able to do so while still somehow sticking the landing on the "big moments" while the wot adaptation stumbled in its execution?

[@mahalleinir_WoT]

Respect for source material. One Piece respected it, so the changes still felt right. WoPrime actively disrespects the source material in their effort to change it.

[@resir9807]

Well a key difference is the involvement of the creator. You also have to acknowledge that One Piece accomplished something incredibly hard, it's a high bar to set. I do believe the show wasted a lot of time, especially with perrin, but I think it desperately needed a few more episodes room to breathe.

[@nirobu]

One Piece isn't exactly a complex story. It's a shounen manga about friends, fighting, and adventure, 1000 chapters of OP is not going to be equal to 1000 chapters of WoT. A simpler story is easier to condense, than the more intricate story that Jordan wrote.

[@TheRosgath]

As a person who has only read what I guess constitutes the beginning of OP (didn't make it to any timeskips), I felt that the LA show did well with it's additions because the additions didn't draw the viewer away from the overarching story of the season and helped build up characters in meaningful ways. WoT show didn't do this. To compare 2 examples, in OP I don't remember Garp at all and the Marines definitely felt all over the place as far as capability. I was consistently wondering what even was their purpose, because they clearly weren't helping anyone really. Every island was besieged by pirates in one way, but there was no follow through with them when it felt like, if they were supposed to be a larger government, there should have been more. (It's been a while since I read the manga though so I might be misremembering). The Garp storyline gives Luffy a direct connection to the marines along with a great foil in Koby. WoT show on the other hand decided to have Rand. . . become an Orderly at a mental Hospital? I mean, ok but that doesn't add anything to his character. We're already into S2 and if we're going to have him going off on his own doing his own thing he needs a profession that builds up things that he'll use later on in the season. If he had chosen to be a GUARD at the mental hospital, that would have served a much better purpose! We'd have a good potential for an outlet on him accidentally channeling and a reason as to why he suddenly is a decent martial combatant. Instead he's basically spent all of S2. . . undoing the decision he made at the end of S1 by telling his friends that he was dead? The changes to Rand's story didn't add anything to the world of WoT, it didn't develop the world in a meaningful way with the possible exception of showing a bit of Cairhien's Game of Houses before it ever becomes relevant. Another example of poorly handled additions in WoT is the Lan/Moraine storyline. Lan and Moraine at this point have known each other for 20 years. They are both ADULTS and they are acting like CHILDREN. Moraine in S1 was very much the sage/mentor figure for the Emond's Fielders and she was portrayed as such for the audience. To have such a severe about face because "she lost her magic". . . doesn't track and the reasoning isn't sound. There's SO many more examples I could give as to why WoT's show changes just don't land, but that would be a Rant as long or Longer than Daniel's here.

[@augustinechinyama8443]

​@@nirobuIf that's all you got from 1000 chapters of One Piece, I wonder why you kept going.

[@lord6617]

They should have ditched the horn, if they weren't going to really sell its legendary-ness and importance, and that ship sailed in season 1. The horn is only really important if you've devoted time to let people understand what a hero of the horn means.

[@MrBellsa61]

Facts. The Horn story felt incredibly forced and should've been scrapped. The hero VFX were very meh and the horn itself was ugly as sin. The season would've been far better off without it.

[@leza4453]

But if you watch reviews from non-readers, they immediately get what kind of mcguffin it is and what it does. Its so close to other fantasy tropes,that it does not need that much explanation.

[@leonardwhite7838]

I disagree with Daniel on one point. I think that Ishamael was actually speaking to Rand, and not Mat, when he expressed some disappointment about him not seeing through the illusion. He sees Rand as the embodiment of Lews, someone who had been a very close friend at one time, and thought that Rand/Lews should have realized that the illusion was just a replica and not the original.

[@mmarmes24]

I haven't read the books, only watched the show and I have to say I'm in a permanent state of confusion. I think you are right about the show needing more episodes to provide more details, especially for those who haven't read the books. I thought Rand was supposed to blow the horn. What are Mat's powers and did he lose his memory? Rand doesn't feel like a main character to me and I disagree with you on some of the casting choices ( they could have done better). Overall, I'm not that smart so I probably won't watch season 3.

[@dracul74]

Great stuff. Imo the most important thing (for me) in sci-fi and fantasy book and tv is the villain character. I think for this show, season 2 invested time in developing villain characters where their story both mattered and was compelling. OG Star Wars is one I think of… Luke was so whiney and Han and Leia were interesting, but hit their stride in ESB. Vader… couldn’t get enough of him from the start. Anyway… looking forward to S3.

[@luscarora703]

Just remove all the Lan Moraine Interaction and build up the horn or Perrin or Rand instead.

[@paulbrooks4395]

You're kind of right but also arguing against yourself at times. There's a lot in this talk that feels ADHD and schizophrenic. The main loss in this series is the screen-time-per-character with the most well-developed characters having enough background and development to make their conclusions feel as though they could justify the things they did. Their setup matched their payoff. Instead, some end up with truncations, ex. Nynaeve, who can barely channel but is now Accepted and went to the White Tower for...nothing? In the same vein, Rand had no training but unleashes great power, Perrin had nothing, and Matt gets a very evil dagger on a stick and maybe learns some fighting skill at the same time (why did he resist the dagger only to keep it within arm's reach?). Because the superfriends have no way to justify their might, they have to win a cheap victory vs the big baddie who barely cares. I know you make the point about the Light, but I would make clearer summations and draw down to points before topic jumping. We're moving into a third season, where characters usually have had time to show "what kind of people they are and what they can do, and we know why". We know who they are, and that they can do things, but we have no idea why. I just don't see it except in the case of Egwene. That leaves these two seasons feeling wasted as far as skill development is concerned, with the show relying on emotional "actoring" moments to create development when there is none.

[@Darm0k]

I agree that there should be more episodes, but I also think that Rafe doesn't care about or respect the lore. So if he had more episodes, they'd be wasted on pointless manufactured drama that isn't from the books.

[@maomekat2369]

Daniel green thinks...this show... SUCCEEDED?... Wow when even the author who despite being the semi book author (has also shown in his own right to be a successful writer in book sales & critics) thus proving he understands character arcs and how to fantasy... thinks there were some big big faults Yes let's praise sound bars instead of confronting that naenaive dressed up as a sukdam to save her best village friend but then op op mc lady char saved herself while wearing a collar...eheueh Did we even watch the same stuff? The villain stood there for 3 mins throwing the same fireball & then stood still to get stabbed.

[@navybrandt]

I disagree that 8 episodes isn't enough. Don't get me wrong; I'd love 12 episodes! However, they are so inefficient in their storytelling with wasted time and added side-stories, that I think the problem isn't the number of episodes.

[@emerystheimmortal417]

I think until they remove the unneeded additional storylines, it is hard to say what they can actually achieve if they committed to 8 episodes

[@sals49ers1]

was super disappointed wit hshow, totally not following the books and the characters r so bad, feel like their adding so much liberal shit into the show thats totally ruining the story. People who watching the show i promise you the books are a million times better

[@bryansuminski7543]

They wouldn't need more episodes if they stopped dicking around with all of the useless made up crap they keep putting in.

[@davidbowles7281]

As opposed to Jordan's useless made up crap?

[@vampiricalchemist]

I do not agree that we need more eps. It would be nice, but it could be achieved with better writing. Stop the Warder filler arcs.

[@timhardy8857]

The 8 episode limitation wouldn't be so damning if they hadn't spent so much time on stories with no payoff or real tie to the overall story. The Lan Moraine schism and Lan off in lalaland peeing on trees to name a couple.

[@bigjonS4]

The most egregious example IMO was Nynaeve and Elayne in Falme to rescue Egwene, Ryma's sacrifice to get them an a'dam, getting the Sul'dam outfit etc. LOL! jokes on you, Egwene can just save herself and murder her captor.

[@simonsmart8615]

I agree as a book reader of all 15 books and the companion book. Rafe is destroying my favourite fantasy series, by being so pro feminist and weakening the male characters

[@kelsonhampton439]

I appreciate your coverage of this Dan. It’s always well thought out and helps me digest my thoughts about the show and books. Thank you.

[@thels5217]

well said

[@RokujyuuyonShou]

I'm struggling to understand why they made Rand so useless. His channeling feats are less than a bottom tier Aes Sedai's and his swordfighting feats are, as you mentioned, less than Nynaeve's (???)

[@markwalker3499]

Daniel, there is so little of the WOT books in the TV production I would not recognize any of it without having read the books first, twice. A good deal of it has been sacrificed to the sheer fact that it would take at minimum 12 or 13 seasons to produce anything resembling Jordan's story, and the rest was sacrificed to political correctness. I watched the first six shows of the first season and was done with it, in fact when they showed Nynaeve nearly burning herself out as well as the rest of her linked circle winning the battle at Tarwin's Gap which never happened in the books, I shut it off and have not thought to waste any more time with it. It is as if they are trying to fit all the books into three seasons because they know it is so bad they will not get a fourth. But even at 12 or 13 seasons it likely would not work because Jordan had over 2,500 named characters, some were woven into the books without any warning, and they played relatively small parts then their arc just faded without resolution, or more like they died with as little fanfare as they came in with. How do you do character development with that many named speaking parts? So I think there is a lot of such development with many of the main characters, but then there is all the parts that are not developed, yet over the course of that many thousands of pages the those that are not micro-character developed are sort of macro-character developed, as in yes there are many in the Two Rivers for example who are not developed well, but there is an overarching archetype of character for the people of the two Rivers that one can assume fills in the lack of detail for each individual character. Also not all of the acting is great, Liandrin in particular bothered me, she is supposed to be able to pass for a sister in the white tower, one look at her and she has black ajah written all over her. No, there is just nothing in this production I like, as sprawling as that story is I can find nothing to like about it. Casting is just horrific, with the possible exception of Rand. And maybe if you watched long enough the Daughter Heir of Andor. If they have not cut Morgase entirely they probably got Whoopi Goldberg for that part. This production should not be called Wheel of Time, it has no WOT in it but it is a confused mess that jumps around not explaining anything. How on Earth did the Jordan Estate allow this slop to bear the name of his books?

[@davidbowles7281]

But they did allow it, because it was the only adaptation that was ever going to be made probably. Except maybe an anime adaptation.

[@cmike123]

Political correctness?? They made Perrin fridge his wife in the first season... The show isnt PC just because they cast a lot of brown people. It just makes sense with so many Asian sounding names, honestly. I always saw these characters as White when I read the books, but Brown people named Sereitha, and Siuan makes more sense.

[@Huhgundai399]

Much like the Dark One, wokeness ruins everything it touches.

[@Tr33B3ar]

They're gonna give Ingtar's darkfriend redemption arc to Liandrin...

[@janaanklassen87]

eipisode count is not a issue. the issue is improper use of time on boring shitty side plots on characters named once across a entire book series. more episodes woulda meant more crap.

[@MS-bo7iw]

They should have just had Elaida from the start instead of Liandrin and give her all of that characterization instead of Liandrin because she is more important and nobody cares about Liandrin and she doesn't have much impact later.

[@leza4453]

I guess they are setting up Liandrin as a much more direct antagonist for the Tanchico and Ebu Dar plotlines

[@funkyd3321]

Brother... 12 episodes will NOT fix this rancid mess. One Piece can be a good show in 8 episodes. 4 more episodes of garbage is just MORE garbage.

[@Carnage5112]

I tried the show in season 1 but was so upset they pulled an Eragon with such a beloved story I didn’t finish. But maybe I’ll give it another shot, and try to enjoy the show regardless of the books

[@JdJd-w9p]

Amazon set back fantasy adaptations for a decade

[@hannahbrennan2131]

Good Omens is amazing though.

[@devlin76]

Great video! Much appreciate hearing your thoughts on the season as a whole in this format. I might have liked it more overall than you, but agree the finale was weak. If Amazon is fixed on 8 episode seasons, maybe we could get 90 minute episodes. The finale for sure could have been significantly better with just 20 more minutes. There were way too many hard cuts and obvious missing scenes.

[@alexlazerboy8354]

dude ure coping very hard if u think there is anything but hot garbage in either season.

[@randallwilliamson3838]

I understand why so many people say we need more episodes... unfortunately they would fill those extra episodes with more Nynaeve sword training and warders reading love poems.

[@animalsoul444]

i just have read the first books again and the had could make an entire first season only to the point that the all get to Caemlyn.

[@Auvinius]

I have to strongly disagree with the whole "more time needed" claim. LotR is one of the most well known series of movies that have very long run times. In their theatrical release, all three movies together were 9 hours and 17 minutes (or if you take only the first two movies, you get 5 hours and 57 minutes), during which Peter Jackson managed to include both the greatest story ever written and also a great deal of deep lore so that everyone was on board what was happening on the screen. Now contrast that to WoT S2 run time of 7 hours and 42 minutes which unlike LotR that had to tell an entire self-contained story, had the luxury of adapting only a single book out of 14 with much smaller page count than LotR. I personally believe that the writers should have been able to tell The Great Hunt book at least in two movies equal to the length of LotR first two theatrical releases, yet they failed to do that even when given another two hours to work with. The fact is, the writers were super inefficient in telling the story and added bunch of their own subpar writing into the mix that didn't need to be in there, only to then be forced to catch up in the last couple episodes in order to wrap up the book (reflecting what happened in the first season). To me, it speaks of poor planning and arrogance to think that they are better writers than one of the fantasy genre's giants. Were there things in the book that could have been improved upon? Yes, I suppose so. Did the show itself manage to do that? In almost all cases, hell no. It is apparent that Rafe Judkins didn't want to write the story that he was given, but instead wanted to do his own thing, emphasizing certain side-characters he himself liked at the expense of the actual main character(s). If I could have been in the writer's room discussing this season with him, I would have told him to write his own damn story instead of trying to hijack someone else's work to facilitate his personal fanfic. Edit: Just to clarify, I would be happy with the show having more episodes per season. However, the poor quality of the show cannot be excused with the lack of time.

[@persephone3892]

While I agree that the story could be condensed better for TV, I dont think LotR is a good comparison. For example, Fellowship has ~177,000 words. Eye of the world has 300,000. Tolkiens writing is very slow and meandering without much being said, the magic system is very simplistic. Robert jordans writing is very detail heavy, especially when it comes to world building and magic specifics. It also has to be considered that tolkiens writing had much longer to be examined and deconstructed, and people still dont realize 'goblin' is the english word for orc (orc is orcish). It's not two species, confirmed by tolkien. Peter jackson directed the hobbit trilogy as well. Back to word count: LotR has 480,000 words. WoT has 4,500,000

[@Auvinius]

@@persephone3892 In regards to the word count, I was comparing the second book for WoT that this season mainly consists of and the LotR series as a whole (but I guess you could add up the books 2 and 3 together to get a proper comparison). Obviously, adapting WoT in its entirety to TV screen would be impossible in the same amount of time as LotR.

[@bigjonS4]

Word count is very poor comparison metric between different writers. The first three WoT are similarly linear and, arguably, smaller in scope than LotR. They hardly adapted anything from TDR and TGH is a very straightforward book. They had more than enough time. Unfortunately they cast their leading actress into a minor book role so had to expand Moiraines storyline.

[@persephone3892]

@@Auvinius Even if the word counts were the same, from my experience robert jordan got a lot more said in 100k than tolkien did. LotR is one of the few book-to-screen adaptations that many people like better than the books. As I said, i agree with you to an extent, but pacing is important and theres no way you can cram all of eye of the world into 8 episodes and keep the feeling of the book.

[@Auvinius]

@@persephone3892 I see your point, which is exactly why I am pretty displeased how the writers chose to add even more things into the episodes that weren't in the books. Adapting a book is challenging enough as it is without screenwriters getting off track and start playing around with completely unrelated storylines. Adapting is more about cutting away parts of the book that are not as necessary for the overarching story and changing only those aspects that wouldn't work on the screen with how they are in the source material.

[@michaelvillaverde4121]

Daniel, I know you have just made peace with this being an adaptation, but it isn’t good. Quit trying to justify it being good. It’s so far off from the masterpiece that is Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time, they should have just named it something else. It still wouldn’t have been good, but at least it wouldn’t be attached to WoT.

[@corriblehunt4554]

Season 2 was better. But that final ep was absolute dog water