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?
Honestly I have no idea of the reasoning behind these changes.
I know that there were accusations of SJW etc.
Maybe those are accurate, maybe not.
I’m not that curious about the motivations, more so in the results.
Wheel of Time imho needs/needed a serious re-write, but I’m yet to be convinced about this re-write.
How is it butchering the author’s vision? Rand is still the DR. He is still facing going mad. The One Power still works the same way it did in the books, taint and all.
They changed what people believed the prophecy to be, which is frankly more reasonable than perfect knowledge via the user manual for the Dragon Reborn. As to some reasons, I’m pretty sure a lot of it was to keep up the suspense for unspoiled viewers and to help them connect more with the women in the group, rather than immediately viewing them as side characters.
The change was unnecessary and not an improvement, but I didn’t feel it butchered the thrust of the books. It was just kinda silly.
Moiraine brings Egwene to the Tower because she can channel. Nynaeve follows the group because she doesn’t trust Moiraine.
These both seem better reasons for Nynaeve and Egwene joining the group than “maybe the literal reincarnation of Lews Therin Telamon is actually a woman”.
Ahh yes, thanks for the reminder. That is indeed a better justification for taking the two women.
I don’t think all the inclusive changes hurt the spirit of the adaption much, as the books are pretty inclusive already. I just saw them as redundant and unnecessary.
That being said, if they cut all the BDSM out of the shows, they may as well be republicans. I mean, shouldn’t all those who like a good spanking while on a leash be represented?
And that’s basically what happens in the show anyway. Why they felt the need to muddy the waters re: the Dragon Reborn, who knows.
I think it’s less that, and more that they were trepidatious about presenting a story where gender has such hardline delineations in the current climate where trans people are facing increasing attacks on their right to exist.
Magic being aligned to one of the only two available genders is core to the world Jordan built, if you cut that you simply are not making WoT. We have a gender spectrum on earth but Randland does not.
One male channeler is reincarnated in a female body later on and he retained access to saidin but there aren’t any transmasc people channeling saidin. Although, I wouldn’t be opposed to that, would be kind of a neat thing to explore, hard enough being trans without being doomed to madness too.
A good explanation to why we can no longer have nice things. People are walking on eggshells, too trepidatious less instant peril. Cowards.
For melodrama.
Except everyone knew who was the Dragon already so it’s akin to trying to hide who Paul Atreides is. People ultimately just get annoyed by the lameness of the attempt.
A strong enough ta’veren can really fuck shit up without being insane (c.f. Mat), and is always, however well meaning they might be, a huge threat to the established order. Maybe there have been female false dragons in TV canon?
Or maybe Moiraine is amplifying what is in her mind the tiniest possibility that the DR could be female into far more than that as a way to mislead and manipulate people while technically telling the truth.
This is something that comes across differently on TV vs text. IIRC in the books its pretty obvious to the reader that its Rand from the beginning., whereas to the viewer of the show it’s less clear cut, so they thought they could make it more interesting and someone said “How does Moiraine know it’s not one of the girls”
It doesn’t make any sense given how magic works in that world, but many TV viewers wouldn’t know that yet. Moiraine certainly would.
Gut, gut, 'cause I really liked the show! :D
I didn’t like GoT; WoT is my jam. There is a lot of Eastern culture hinted at in the books that is brought out more overtly in season 1, which is great. This has always made this series feel orthogonal to Tolkien in a way that nearly all high fantasy of the time failed to do.
Full disclosure, I got bored of the books around… 7 or 8? There is a lot of great stuff in there though, and season 2 and 3 will be very high of the list of things bringing me back to Prime video.
Something the show did not do that… could have been better (I’m undecided on this?) is for all intents and purposes the Source was not differentiated into different elements… at least not overtly. Perhaps this would have just been too much information to throw at the viewer in the first season. We’ll see. I remember it being a pretty huge plot point in the books.