Wheel of Time Discussion - Spoilers(with book spoilers)

[Mallus]

So after finishing the third episode and conferring with an old friend who has read all the books, the verdict is: I like it. The show, so far, delivers the pleasures of doorstop epic fantasy. It doesn’t threaten to revolutionize the genre like the best parts of Game of Thrones. Or fail to, like the rest of Game of Thones.

I think the biggest complaint I have is Amazon didn’t throw a container ship full of money at adapting The Riftwar, The Belgariad, or The Saga of the Pliocene Exile, ie series from my youth that I like more.

 

[payn]

We finished Ep 3 today. It definitely improved from the first episode, and we can see the characters and plot developing.

Even though my wife and I both finished the entire series, she doesn't remember most of the plot points or back story from the first book, so I'm answering a lot of "what is that?" and "why?" questions that could be better explained -- but I do feel that by and large the series is doing a good job with "show don't tell". There's way to much for everything to be explained.

Im not so sure. Outside of "the dragon returns is good or bad depending who finds it first" I still dont know much about whats going on, the differences between people, how magic works, or any other things that make this particular setting unique. The simple main storyline has me online for now, but I dont find myself wondering too much about anything else.

 

[Parmandur]

Im not so sure. Outside of "the dragon returns is good or bad depending who finds it first" I still dont know much about whats going on, the differences between people, how magic works, or any other things that make this particular setting unique. The simple main storyline has me online for now, but I dont find myself wondering too much about anything else.

To be fair, you wouldn't know almost any of that at this point in the books, either. Heck, "how magic works" takes till book 3 to really get fully operational for the reader. If one thing can be said about the Wheel of Time, is that it is a slow burn.

 

[payn]

To be fair, you wouldn't know almost any of that at this point in the books, either. Heck, "how magic works" takes till book 3 to really get fully operational for the reader. If one thing can be said about the Wheel of Time, is that it is a slow burn.

Yeap, this reafirms my choice of waiting for the TV series and passing on the books

 

[Demetrios1453]

Im not so sure. Outside of "the dragon returns is good or bad depending who finds it first" I still dont know much about whats going on, the differences between people, how magic works, or any other things that make this particular setting unique. The simple main storyline has me online for now, but I dont find myself wondering too much about anything else.

The magic part is probably going to get somewhat info-dumped during the next episode, given the person we saw in the cage at the very end of the episode. What he can do, why he is caged, and what the Aes Sedai can do in comparison are probably subjects that will discussed, probably using Nynaeve as the audience surrogate.

As for all the different places in the world, we'll start visiting them over time, some this season, and a lot next season, assuming they follow the books relatively closely. We'll see some areas that are a bit different than your typical standard fantasy kingdoms in the next few episodes, and unique cultures like the Aiel and Tinkers have already been mentioned. We'll no doubt get a lot more on the Tinkers next episode as Egwene and Perrin have just met them. We've actually only been in one nation pretty much this entire time (although Egwene and Perrin are now in the wastelands outside any nation's borders at this point), the Kingdom of Andor, even if the Two Rivers have forgotten they are technically within its borders...

 

[Parmandur]

The magic part is probably going to get somewhat info-dumped during the next episode, given the person we saw in the cage at the very end of the episode. What he can do, why he is caged, and what the Aes Sedai can do in comparison are probably subjects that will discussed, probably using Nynaeve as the audience surrogate.

They have said that they are going to cover a bunch of the Great Hunt this season and touch on the Dragon Reborn, so yeah, the introduction to Aes Sedai stuff has probably been expedited.

 

[Demetrios1453]

They have said that they are going to cover a bunch of the Great Hunt this season and touch on the Dragon Reborn, so yeah, the introduction to Aes Sedai stuff has probably been expedited.

Some of The Great Hunt. Given that the titles for episodes 7 and 8 have been leaked "The Darkness Along the Ways" and "The Eye of the World", which indicate that over-all plot-wise we're only getting to the end of the first book this season, it's likely that we're only going to see fairly small portions of the second book moved forward probably the Aes Sedai stuff at the start of the book in Fal Dara will be moved to Tar Valon and appear in episode 6.

 

[Parmandur]

Some of The Great Hunt. Given that the titles for episodes 7 and 8 have been leaked "The Darkness Along the Ways" and "The Eye of the World", which indicate that over-all plot-wise we're only getting to the end of the first book this season, it's likely that we're only going to see fairly small portions of the second book moved forward probably the Aes Sedai stuff at the start of the book in Fal Dara will be moved to Tar Valon and appear in episode 6.

Yeah, that's about what I figure, too. And it makes sense for what they are going for.

 

[Mercurius]

As a King fan that grew up reading The Dark Tower and it’s related works…I’m not even bothered by the wait for the next Kingkiller book tbh.

I hear you, although I think a few things make the situations rather different: For one, the longest gap between DT books was six years, unless you count the (surprise) eighth book. Furthermore, books 5-7 came out in a two-year span, sort of a gift for fans, I suppose. Also, afaik (and to be honest, I don't know a lot about the progression of the series) I don't think King made promises. Finally, he wrote a lot of other stuff in-between.

Rothfuss' situation, I think, is a combination of catching the celebrity bug, procrastination, perfectionism, and mental health issues. I feel for the guy, but it really is quite odd that we're now ten years in. That's a lot of time to finish a book that he presumably had at least a very rough draft for.

I'm not bothered, though - I never finished the first book. I tried a couple times, but found it a mix of really good and kind of annoying, and just didn't get more than about 150 pages in. Maybe I'll give it another shot at some point, but will probably wait until the third book comes out.

 

[Mordhau]

Writing these long series is just a bad idea for a writer. People grow and change and they become interested in different things.

It became obvious to me, when reading Fire and Blood, that Martin for instance could probably do a lot more interesting things, and basically do what he's trying to do with a lot of his Westeros writing a lot better, if he was unshackled from writing in the point of view fantasy style that A Song of Ice and Fire was written in. (If he wasn't compelled to keep trudging on with the original series, he could experiment more with the unreliable narrators he was playing with in Fire and Blood).