They nailed the characters, the story beats, the villains, costumes, everything. I was skeptical after season 2 though I’m not a book purist, but they really know what they’re doing. Even constrained by the stupid 8 episode per season limit by Amazon.
And that episode this season is probably one of the best episodes of fantasy television.
I really wish I had watched what you did. What I saw was not that. Glad you are enjoying it though.
Curios what you didn’t like this season? For myself, I went with the expectation that it’s not gonna match the story/character beats from the book 1:1 and they’re not gonna be able to incorporate many characters from the books for brevity’s sake. What I did care about was if they would be able to preserve the soul of the main characters and villains and how compelling is their development. I have not found a single main character or villain (heck even some side characters) that is not hitting it out of the park in that respect. I see Lan, I see Siuan, I see Egwene, I see Lanfear, I see moggy etc. My mind fully accepts these are the same characters I read in the books. Some even enhanced.
I guess I just see it differently. I keep on saying that I have to view this as a separate turning of the wheel, where everyone has been sniffing paint.
I don’t really feel that anyone encompasses the character they are portraying, maybe if we are really lucky they take the most obvious surface level characteristic and make that the entirety of the character. They are so busy cutting content out to make door stopper books fit in less than 8 hours of TV while cherry-picking the exciting scenes that there is an increasing amount of disconnection and disjointed story telling. Instead of deliberate action the characters are just stumbling around having things happen.
It feels to me like they are adapting from chapter summaries not the books. Which would maybe be acceptable back in the 1990s/2000s but these days we have stellar adaptations like the Expanse to show how it can be done correctly.
I feel like we didn’t read the same book. I never felt that the character had any depth in the books. I never felt that actions were a thing in the books. I never felt that the books were adaptable also, because they are so full of … nothing? most of the time.
To be fair, i dislike how Jordan wrote. I know it’s very vivid and full of details for some peoples but it feel very flat to me… And I did read and loved Malazan Book of the Fallen…
So to say, I prefer the TV version to the books, mostly because the books are written in a way that do nothing for me…
Where was I going with all of this ?
Nowhere, like book 4-5-6 … I kid, I kid!
I had the same opinion as you when I first started the series. I felt like I was missing something about the characters but couldn’t pin it down. I was taking what was happening on the pages at face value (and rushing thru it a bit tbh). The overly descriptive writing didn’t help. But then I stumbled upon a liveblog of a person reading through the series and sharing their thoughts. Just reading a few chapters of the blog unlocked a whole new layer of depth for the characters and the story for me that I had been missing. So much so that the infamous ‘Slog’ didn’t faze me at all and I prolly had some of the most fun reading WoT during that time. All because I was able to read between the lines of what Jordan wrote.
Now is it a knock against WoT that an external source was needed for me to understand it fully? I don’t think so. Plenty of great works sometimes need a guiding hand to be fully appreciated. But that’s just me. I’m bringing this all up in case you ever wanna get back into reading the books again. This will surely help enhance the reading experience and maybe make it actually enjoyable.
I always felt drawn in by the world, and honestly the imagery in the first season had me excited. The remains of buildings and other links to the past were compelling.
spoiler
Now… We visit the Panarchs palace and it is a few dimly lit rooms and some corridors with what 5 - 6 guards. Instead of watching Nynaeve prove that when she is mad enough she is a force of nature. She gets thrown in the lake and the voice of her dream child makes her sad enough to channel.
Instead of Elayne being in control and showing how poised someone who is raised to rule can be we have her trying to best Jaskier in the fantasy series earworm stakes.
Instead of Moiraine being the ultimate enigma who always has an angle and is revealed to be a master manipulator who has been pulling everyone’s strings she makes a deal with Lanfear and acts like the worlds oldest emo.
Siuan Sanche gets blindsided and deposed by Aes Sedai who scheme about as well as the current US administration and almost as subtly. I seriously don’t know why they even mention Gareth Bryne when we seem to have effectively written out the other half of that plot thread.
All the shit they did to and with Loial.
I think they read Mat as someone who inspires everyone to punch him repeatedly in the face until he shuts up… That’s not roguish charm to me.
I’m sorry, I like the books and my main problems with the characters are Jordan’s insistence on repeatedly recycling the same mannerisms over and over (tugging on braids) not the way they are written on a mental or emotional level.
You might be right! In fact that’s a good point. But they still did not do anything for me… But ai get your point, we got several very good moments amputated, and tbey decided to cut a lot of fun characters too…
I think their choice was mostly pragmatic… They needed to make 8 episodes that would convince the studio to produce a fourth season.
In a non capitalistic art world, your vision would have been the right answer I think…
From where I am (was) sitting, my partner watched it straight through and I enjoyed sampling. Each scene appeared to be largely identical from a plot-delivery perspective. Just a bunch of people sitting around some table (or other appropriately sff contraption), talking about what characters who aren’t present were/are doing, and never showing those characters doing the things. Everyone seemed to be constantly looking for someone else, whether in dreams or futures or what have you, and it felt like the opposite of compelling.
Granted, I’m sure that it’s better than seasons 1&2… but those are extremely low bars.
To dig deeper, it sounds like this is a season where people who read and liked the books got to see their favorite characters not making fools of themselves. As this is rare enough in drama these days, I’m loathe to critique the sentiment (looking at you Netflix Witcher).
I think the show varies from the books so much that they can only be considered loosely related. That said I mostly enjoyed this season, though I do occasionally struggle to remind myself to keep it separate from the books so that I can enjoy it .
I liked season 1 well enough but by 3 episodes into season two I was done. How much better does it get?
Lowkey same about season 2. It took me a minute to get into and it was mostly cuz of wanting to see how they developed Mat. They mostly nailed the main arcs that season (a few characters were stagnant but ig with only 8 eps it’s bound to happen especially in early seasons). Season 3 I’d say is a vast improvement partially because the story/character setup of the last 2 seasons is finally paying off and they’re fully leaning into the high fantasy element of the show and not hand holding the audience. And partially because how it looks and feels. They switched to cinemascope (21:9) aspect ratio, to achieve a more “cinematic” look and it shows.
Oh and this season has some of the best moments from the entire series so it has that going for it, but credit to them, they nailed it.
So now the question is will there be a season 4 of TWoT? Because it wasn’t announced by Amazon yet. And that is usually a bad sign.
The viewing numbers this season were great across countries and the critics reviews are on par with best seasons of GoT. It’s as good a foundation as any to get renewed. Here’s hoping.
I hope the show gets renewed as well.
But I’m seeing the same thing I saw with regard to The Expanse. There was one more book to adapt in the series and Amazon drug its feet before giving fans and the cast an answer. Ultimately, The Expanse was cancelled. History seems to be repeating itself.
EDIT: My bad. There were 3 more books to adapt with The Expanse.
I enjoyed it. But I also have low standards for slop and only half remember the books. I shotgunned them one July in the 2010s, so I don’t have the strong sentiment of a lot of folks that grew up reading them.
i should download it perhapsYeah they’ve really figured it out, I think. Perrin’s actor is still terrible, though. Rand’s isn’t much better.
I don’t mind Perrin’s actor that much since the character itself is mostly stoic. Rand’s actor seemed fine to me apart from a couple moments here and there.
