Game of Thrones led off with pretty explicit incest, got to compete somehow.
They made a bunch of changes, but I didn’t feel like they betrayed the books, like the Amazon Foundation take. On the other hand, Foundation is a much better show.
It could be that I have a very low opinion of the WoT books in the first place, though, and Foundation is one of the best series ever written.
Foundation is Apple, but, details.
Well, from what I remember, it was written more like the equivalent of ‘college girls experimenting’. A stereotype I know. Later both have hetero relationships.
While in the show, they seem madly in love. It doesn’t seem exactly the same canon.
Canonical as a background/preceding the events in the book, not once during the book.
This show is supposed to tell what happens during the book.
There was no steamy tryst between Moraine and Siuan in the book, felt forced in.
Here’s how it was described by one of the more popular Wheel of Time YouTube channels. When the original books first came out in 1990, fully depicting a lesbian relationship would have resulted in censorship of the books. Robert Jordan had an opportunity to readdress this when he wrote New Spring 14 years later, when this relationship was more acceptable (and when he had become popular enough to do what he wanted).
It’s entirely possible that Jordan had always wanted them to be lesbians but was unable to do so because of the mores at the time of writing. This wasn’t Amazon just making stuff out of whole cloth.
Nor did I say it was!
It felt forced because, imho, of a big disconnect from the books and, I think importantly, perhaps more so, I don’t think it furthered the plot or the character arcs.
It ties into one of the other big changes - that of Moiraine being banished. Not in the books, nor was it needed.
There is also, from memory, a great deal of spanking, so I am not buying this “mores of the time” argument.
The spanking was dropped, imho a good change, because the purpose it served in the books (conflict being resolved one way or the other) can be served with other means.
The entire season 1 felt quite muddled to me, and the lesbian scenes are really only a small part of it.
Of far bigger import imho is the ending, and changing the very core of the story, which is about Male Aes Sedai being a very real and present danger, and not just because of Reds being fanatical.
Removing that served no purpose that I can see, and just confuses things and unravels some of the key plot points.
I think with something like this, you need the take “based on the wheel of time books” in the credits to heart. There was never any chance something as sprawling as the books were going to get an even close translation to the screen. So why worry about it? They’ll hit some of the major story beats I’m sure beyond that they’ll do whatever think works best for a TV series. Accept it for what it is, not what it isn’t I guess.
Indeed, the first book was relatively tight but after the third, you could probably make 3 seasons of TV out of each one.
Clearly some of my nits were from not remembering the books very well.
However, no one has even commented on me finding it contrary to the underlying theme of the entire series, to have the possibility of a female Dragon Reborn.
Anyone else have any thoughts?
Read back in the thread. I think most of us that had any familiarity with the books thought it was a super dumb change.
It was, yes, and mostly because it was unnecessary. That said, it didn’t bother me much. The show was relatively faithful to the books in the important bits, unlike Foundation. And while I seem to shit on it often, I did enjoy it-- just not as much as Foundation, which was a much more ambitious enterprise.
I’m totally in board with rewriting the entire series if it makes things better. A more cohesive group of plots, kill off some superfluous characters etc.
Basically edit it.
Season 1 does not improve on the books imho.
Ahem…(edit : what stusser said)
I had no problem with the “possibility of a female dragon reborn” because these people are operating on legend and mythology from over 3000 years prior. Whether its possible or not, it seems like “can the dragon reborn be female?” is a rather acceptable question. There is a ton of shit they don’t know or just have wisps of knowledge about and I don’t see how not fully understanding the rules of the reappearance of the dragon reborn is a problem. Not considering all possibilities is though, in my opinion. This seems like a silly thing to get hung up on.
Thanks to the couple of responses above, as I think I mentioned in my first post after completing it, I was about 400 posts behind, but wanted to give some thoughts.
IMO, it’s a completely unacceptable question because the only reason either the Dragon or the Dragon Reborn are dangerous is that they are males that can channel, and will be driven mad.
Clearly, plenty of females can and have channeled, but none of them are considered anywhere near as dangerous as the Dragon was or the Dragon Reborn is feared to be.
Yes, the Dragon was part of mythology, but the mythology was he was an insane male who broke the world.
All male channelers go mad, but what’s to stop a female channeler from going mad, too (for reasons other than the taint), or from saving the world?
This is a world that believes in rebirth, but who is to say that their belief is that people are always reborn into the same gender?
I don’t see why it is so hard to believe that an ancient legend/prophecy is unclear or that different versions of it exist. Heck, that’s more likely than some sort of perfectly preserved, universally accepted prophecy.
Moraine et al are searching for the Dragon Reborn, who is only a danger because he is:
There is no ambiguity about this in the books.
Females don’t go mad like male channelers do. They are not a danger like a male channeler is.
The central tension of the books is that they need but fear/hate the Dragon Reborn, because he could end up as bad as the evil they are fighting.
That is the central premise of the books, and changing that by making the Dragon possibly a female is a huge re-write.
Now, they are free to do whatever they want with the IP, but as someone who finished the books a month or so before the TV series, the change in direction does not seem, thus far, for the better.
Maybe they will make it all better in Season 2, but the question over the changes made lingers.
Edit: the in story mythology is always about a male dragon.
Making it possibly a female is something the tv series creators did, for no discernible benefit that I can see.
I think I can take a guess at this one: Female impowerment. Or rather, a male only dragon reborn is clearly sexist! /S
It’s sexist for females to have the lead role in saving the world from a insane male?
Not to me…
Look, I skew liberal like most on this board, but this is not female empowerment, it’s butchering the author’s vision.
Yeah, they just didn’t want to use Jordan’s original justification for Nynaeve and Egwene joining the three ta’veren, and thought theirs was better. I don’t even remember why they joined originally so maybe they were right. Maybe Egwene loved Rand and Nynaeve wanted to protect her flock?