Online Series: The Wheel of Time (Prime Video, Nov 22)

[Jussi]

They’re pulling from some of the best book plots.
If they do it justice they’ll get renewed for s4.
And if they can get s4 (which should end w book 6) they should be able to finish.

I think season 4 has already been confirmed? Edit: the showrunner has only teased that the show could last for 6-7 seasons. Season 4 probably wouldn't be out until 2027. It's apparently #2 show on Prime Video now.

 

[Jussi]

Agreed. Book readers are still struggling with all the changes but, despite myself also being a book reader, I'm mostly ok with them. Some changes kinda frustrated me. For example, Mat in particular. Some of Mat's changes aren't the showrunners fault (original actor was an anti-vax moron) but some are just perplexing to me (memories are via horn, really?). But then again some are awesome such as I don't feel like someone needs to smacking Nynaeve upside the head for the first half of the story like I did in the books.

"Chewing the scenery" was a constant observation of Aghdashloo's character Elaida in the books. It's a master class in casting and looks to be execution so far, IMO. They've leveled Elaida up from the books, and she was a great character in the books. They've are given her more depth and honestly skills than she ever had in books. Can't wait until her arc really starts to ramp up.

I was questioning them skipping book 3, but honestly it does make more sense for Rand to head to the waste before Tear. I'm just disappointed Mat didn't go with them. I'm hoping they'll repurpose his storyline in Tanchico but I guess we'll see.

I'm sure I'm gonna be called crazy but Faile is a favourite character of mine. So I was super excited to see her show up her in S3, and so far I'm liking the characterization.

I have to say I like the personal tensions between the Forsaken. Clearly not a unfied group. The spider lady is creepy as hell.

 

[IDvsEGO]

I have to say I like the personal tensions between the Forsaken. Clearly not a unfied group. The spider lady is creepy as hell.

have you read the books?

 

[IDvsEGO]

Agreed. Book readers are still struggling with all the changes but, despite myself also being a book reader, I'm mostly ok with them. Some changes kinda frustrated me. For example, Mat in particular. Some of Mat's changes aren't the showrunners fault (original actor was an anti-vax moron) but some are just perplexing to me (memories are via horn, really?). But then again some are awesome such as I don't feel like someone needs to smacking Nynaeve upside the head for the first half of the story like I did in the books.

"Chewing the scenery" was a constant observation of Aghdashloo's character Elaida in the books. It's a master class in casting and looks to be execution so far, IMO. They've leveled Elaida up from the books, and she was a great character in the books. They've are given her more depth and honestly skills than she ever had in books. Can't wait until her arc really starts to ramp up.

I was questioning them skipping book 3, but honestly it does make more sense for Rand to head to the waste before Tear. I'm just disappointed Mat didn't go with them. I'm hoping they'll repurpose his storyline in Tanchico but I guess we'll see.

I'm sure I'm gonna be called crazy but Faile is a favourite character of mine. So I was super excited to see her show up her in S3, and so far I'm liking the characterization.

I'm hoping that they don't change the core of Elaida too much. The concept of Elaida is a really good one.

The memories via the horn is okay-ish. I'm more annoyed about him not going to the waste, mostly because how does he get to where he needs to be in b5. His b4 plotline basically ends half way in.


If they do Rand justice here.
Rand is in my opinion one of the best characters in all of fantasy. Well written, dark, intelligent, and oh my god what an arc he has.

 

[Jussi]

have you read the books?

Nope as I said before.

 

[Holden Caulfield]

I'm hoping that they don't change the core of Elaida too much. The concept of Elaida is a really good one.

The memories via the horn is okay-ish. I'm more annoyed about him not going to the waste, mostly because how does he get to where he needs to be in b5. His b4 plotline basically ends half way in.


If they do Rand justice here.
Rand is in my opinion one of the best characters in all of fantasy. Well written, dark, intelligent, and oh my god what an arc he has.

I'm gonna move this into spoiler tags, just for show only watchers. You did good, but I'm gonna have trouble here, so yeah anyone not wanting book spoilers, do not click below

Spoiler: Book Spoilers

Agreed. But in the books we never really find out how she rose to such prominence, she must have had some skill at Dae's Daemar to have maintained such standing as to have the political capital to be elected after Alviarin's plots. Figurehead or not she had some skill with it. We never saw it in the books really. Yeah strength in the power played a part but it wasn't everything. Here we see her setting it up. So it's going to make her fall out so much worse when we've already seen her at her devious best. She legitimately is the hero in her own head, her problem was just being such a control freak and just overall poor leader.

Yeah I suppose so. But I've been holding out against hope that they weren't just going to KO the finns out of the story. But it's looking more and more like they will. How that will impact Moraine/Lanfear thing as well as the Mat/Thom/Noal thing, idk but also I always doubted star Rosamund Pike was going to sit out multiple seasons. And the dagger as part of Ashendrei (sp? lol) just doesn't make sense to me either long term, even though the showrunners did confirm that wasn't his spear after S2 finished so we'll see I guess.

And 100%. The success of the show ultimately will ride on that. Obviously they are going have to significantly shorten grumpy Rand that lasts from b3 even he starts showing it until the end of b12, but hopefully they don't pull up too much on just how dark it gets. He has it so much rougher than anyone, and b12 there gets dark. It gets really hard to cheer for him, even as he was one of my favourite characters. But it feels so realistic, despite you knowing this is high fantasy it will always turn out alright always sometimes it really didn't feel like that with him. And to me it was so so easy for b13-14 Rand to come off cheesy, but it really didn't to me (except maybe the very first scene with him walking down the mountain). But if we get to the point of discussing THAT, the show will have already been a success really.

 

[The Marquis]

Agreed. Book readers are still struggling with all the changes but, despite myself also being a book reader, I'm mostly ok with them. Some changes kinda frustrated me. For example, Mat in particular. Some of Mat's changes aren't the showrunners fault (original actor was an anti-vax moron) but some are just perplexing to me (memories are via horn, really?). But then again some are awesome such as I don't feel like someone needs to smacking Nynaeve upside the head for the first half of the story like I did in the books.

"Chewing the scenery" was a constant observation of Aghdashloo's character Elaida in the books. It's a master class in casting and looks to be execution so far, IMO. They've leveled Elaida up from the books, and she was a great character in the books. They've are given her more depth and honestly skills than she ever had in books. Can't wait until her arc really starts to ramp up.

I was questioning them skipping book 3, but honestly it does make more sense for Rand to head to the waste before Tear. I'm just disappointed Mat didn't go with them. I'm hoping they'll repurpose his storyline in Tanchico but I guess we'll see.

I'm sure I'm gonna be called crazy but Faile is a favourite character of mine. So I was super excited to see her show up her in S3, and so far I'm liking the characterization.

I like Faile because she’s the type of person I could never get along with. My first impressions of the character in the show are exactly that, so I’m glad. She also looks exactly like I pictured the character, which would be the only one so far.

 

[IDvsEGO]

I'm gonna move this into spoiler tags, just for show only watchers. You did good, but I'm gonna have trouble here, so yeah anyone not wanting book spoilers, do not click below

Spoiler: Book Spoilers

Agreed. But in the books we never really find out how she rose to such prominence, she must have had some skill at Dae's Daemar to have maintained such standing as to have the political capital to be elected after Alviarin's plots. Figurehead or not she had some skill with it. We never saw it in the books really. Yeah strength in the power played a part but it wasn't everything. Here we see her setting it up. So it's going to make her fall out so much worse when we've already seen her at her devious best. She legitimately is the hero in her own head, her problem was just being such a control freak and just overall poor leader.

Yeah I suppose so. But I've been holding out against hope that they weren't just going to KO the finns out of the story. But it's looking more and more like they will. How that will impact Moraine/Lanfear thing as well as the Mat/Thom/Noal thing, idk but also I always doubted star Rosamund Pike was going to sit out multiple seasons. And the dagger as part of Ashendrei (sp? lol) just doesn't make sense to me either long term, even though the showrunners did confirm that wasn't his spear after S2 finished so we'll see I guess.

And 100%. The success of the show ultimately will ride on that. Obviously they are going have to significantly shorten grumpy Rand that lasts from b3 even he starts showing it until the end of b12, but hopefully they don't pull up too much on just how dark it gets. He has it so much rougher than anyone, and b12 there gets dark. It gets really hard to cheer for him, even as he was one of my favourite characters. But it feels so realistic, despite you knowing this is high fantasy it will always turn out alright always sometimes it really didn't feel like that with him. And to me it was so so easy for b13-14 Rand to come off cheesy, but it really didn't to me (except maybe the very first scene with him walking down the mountain). But if we get to the point of discussing THAT, the show will have already been a success really.

Full book spoilers.

Spoiler: Book Spoilers

Elaida - She was popular with the reds, we see in books 2/3 that there's some oddness with political factions as Suian points out that reds and greens were aligning against her which literally made no sense.
Remember that Alviarin gets Elaida elected only by virtue of having the minimum number of sitters at the election, and at least 1 was a DF.

The core of Elaida's plot that I want/need is that not all shitty people in this world are DF's. That you can be trying to do good, and still be a shit person. See Aridhol. See Whitecloaks.
It ties into the lesson Rand doesn't learn till the end...

The finn's are absolutely not KO'd. We get a hanging vision. We got snakes and foxes board game. We're getting finns. Location of the door might be different.
There was a Behind the scenes with Shohreh Aghdashloo and her braclet has snakes and foxes on it.

Rand needs to go dark. The plot demands it. The depth he needs to sink is what makes this series. It's what allows you to accept the actual ending. That the story ends with him, and he deserves his rest.
The punch after punch he needs to take. The thing thats bothering me already is that the show hasn't even started to hammer home, Rand being told "you have to do this", we got the first hints of "i want to go home", but not the "I hate this shit, I do it because I must, but I hate this shit"
We haven't even really gotten that Rand's fate is to die. That needs to be hammered home. Over and Over again.
But if we get 1 more season, we get Dumai Wells. And Dumai Wells done properly, gets you the end of this series.
That would get a bigger reaction than battle of the bastards.

 

[RandV]

I'm hoping that they don't change the core of Elaida too much. The concept of Elaida is a really good one.

The memories via the horn is okay-ish. I'm more annoyed about him not going to the waste, mostly because how does he get to where he needs to be in b5. His b4 plotline basically ends half way in.


If they do Rand justice here.
Rand is in my opinion one of the best characters in all of fantasy. Well written, dark, intelligent, and oh my god what an arc he has.

I've only caught the first episode of season 3, so haven't gotten to Elaida yet. But my audio book re-read of the series the other year I found without gettng into spoilers Elaida went from a strong character to a sort of bumbling caricature of a powerful woman. I feel like things will have to change because Shohreh Aghdashloo is too good/strong an actor to go down that root. When I heard she was cast I first assumed she'd be playing Cadsuane.

 

[Holden Caulfield]

Episode 4 might be the most book accurate episode to date. One of the best they've also done so far. Great episode. This was a tough sequence to pull off and I think they did well. I thought the sequence with Moiraine was well done as well in adding her journey, that is off screen in the books.

 

[IDvsEGO]

Episode 4 might be the most book accurate episode to date. One of the best they've also done so far. Great episode. This was a tough sequence to pull off and I think they did well. I thought the sequence with Moiraine was well done as well in adding her journey, that is off screen in the books.

it was very book accurate down to the exact wording.
It was almost a bit too sunny though.
Josha acted his ass off though.