Hey guys, I know it’s supposed to be a short story day but I wanted to talk about the Wheel of Time show and decided to strike while the iron was hot. Just like Perrin! Too soon? That was probably too soon.
Spoilers below for the first three episodes and most of the books
I think the best thing about getting older is you slowly stop giving a shit about a lot of stuff. I know if you’re young you might read that and think that’s scary, or that it’ll never happen to you. But it will happen to you, and it’s not scary because you don’t care that it’s happening. Sometime in your upper twenties somebody is going to stay something to you at a party that, five years prior, would have sent you into a drunken rant complete with wild gesticulating and people evacuating to another room, and you’re going to feel nothing. And it’s going to be great.
So, yeah, I’ve seen a lot of negative opinions about the first three episodes of The Wheel of Time series that dropped last Friday, almost entirely because of changes made from the books. I was that person once. I remember hating that TNT miniseries adapted from Salem’s Lot because it wasn’t a scene-for-scene recreation (now I nothing it because it sucks and its not worth going back to). I was vaguely annoyed at changes made in The Lord of the Rings and the Harry Potter movies. And then, sometime after that, I stopped caring. I’ve been through this dance and, just like the Cha Cha Slide, I’d rather shoot off a toe then have to do it again.
I’m not saying everyone keyboard mashing this last weekend is a teenager who still cares about things they absolutely should roll with…but maybe?
They Gave Perrin A Wife? And Then Immediately Killed Her?
I’m not, like, dead inside. I do still have some emotions. This creative choice probably brought out the biggest one, and it was confusion. I don’t fully understand why this had to happen. I get they aged up the characters…oh, wait…
They Aged Up the Characters, and They Have Sex Now
Yeah, whatever. This is fine. The books are strangely Puritanical when it comes to sex, so to have Egwene and Rand take it to Bone-Town not even halfway through the first episode in the middle of Egwene’s parents inn was sort of refreshing. That plus Moiraine seeing Lan’s fully soft dick in the bathtub is already more action than anyone in the books ever got.
Back to Perrin’s Fridged Wife
My only hope with this one is that the show creators plan on taking out the series of events in the books spurred by Perrin killing a White Cloak. Because I hated all of that. It didn’t go anywhere for a long time and then it came back and it went on forever. So, if they’re replacing Perrin’s conflicted feelings about killing a White Cloak with his tortured feelings about accidentally killing his wife (was she supposed to be pregnant?) whose name I don’t even remember, I’m all for it.
Moiraine Doesn’t Immediately Know Rand is the Dragon Reborn
I had no idea this would set people off until I saw it with my own two eyes. And there are people who are thinking that they’ll actually change who the Dragon Reborn is? Like, Amazon would spend however many millions of dollars on this and make such a drastic change to the plot? It’s these kinds of situations where I think some people enjoy working themselves up into a lather and lashing out at strangers on the internet more than anything else.
A Red Ajah Bitch Told a Man Who Could Channel That Men Tainted the Source Instead of the Other Way Around, So Clearly That’s Canon
Not just any Red Ajah Bitch. Fucking Liandrin. Anyone who knows enough to complain about the way she explained the taint (hee) should know enough not to believe a word out of fucking Liandrin’s mouth. I was wondering if perhaps the creators were planting it as a clue for people who hadn’t read the books. Eventually the actual situation – there’s two halves of magical powers and the male half is seriously Fucked Up, in case anyone here hasn’t read the books and doesn’t mind spoilers – is going to be explained, and then maybe some observant viewer will remember Liandrin completely lying and think, ‘wait a minute, I thought Aes Sedai couldn’t lie?’ And that’s how we start factoring in the Black Ajah.
Or, you know, the writers of this show were all drunk all the time and put copies of book in the urinals to help their fumbling aim.
Egwene Might Be Ta’veren
I honestly sort of forgot she wasn’t one in the books, so, sure. Why not.
All of This is Only Distracting Us from The Actual Worst Thing in the Adaptation: The Aes Sedai Rings
Holy shit, how tacky are those things? What the actual fuck are those stones? And they’re the color of their Ajah for some fucking reason. Aes Sedai haven’t even picked their Ajah yet when they get those. Do they magic the color in there? They’re supposed to be these subtle ouroboros rings, just a gold snake eating its tail around their finger, and instead they look like milk-flavored Ring Pops.
I Honestly Can’t Think of Anything I Disliked More Than the Rings, So Here’s a List of Stuff I Did Like
- The diversity, which I know is a sticking point for some people but those people probably suck in other ways, too. It’s fantasy, so who gives a shit? More to the books point, everyone got scattered after the breaking of the world, so of course everyone is everywhere.
- The hints that this is a far-future of our world are so much more obvious and I am here for it. When that early shot in the first episode panned out to show what I thought were giant stone columns, but then resolved to being grown-over skyscrapers, I went, “…um, what?” At which point my husband went ‘Holy shit.’ I hope they keep it at this level, though. I don’t need them to find a buried high school or anything.
- Lan and Moraine’s relationship is exactly the kind of platonic male-female friendship I have been yearning for.
- Reading the books, I kept picturing the Aes Sedai using Saidar on screen, and it always looked like the psychic fight from that one episode of South Park. This is much better. Not only showing how she’s pulling and weaving from the different elemental sources, but showing precisely why warders are so important: weaving is time and energy intensive, yo, and they need someone to keep the goblins off their back while they gather enough energy to take a house down stone by stone.
- Lan and Nynaeve already have that ‘OH THEY FUCKIN’ energy, to the point where I don’t even know how they’re going to pace out this slow burn.
- Zoe Robins is nailing Nynaeve. I don’t think there’s been more than a few minutes where she didn’t look like she was seconds away from stepping on someone. She is exuding that white-hot rage.
This Show is Good
Great? No. Not yet. There’s potential. And it’s okay if you don’t like all or any of the changes. All I’m saying is, you’re allowed to dislike something without turning it into your whole personality for the week.
High Urban Fantasy Jazz 