Wheel of Time Discussion - Spoilers(with book spoilers)

[Maxperson]

I mean...yes, you would be lost. I don't think it's an unfair adaptation, per se, but there is a lot of material from the first book that didn't make it in that if you want to check out the books, you'll want to go for book 1. Whole characters and subots were cut.

And some were changed pretty drastically.

 

[Parmandur]

And some were changed pretty drastically.

Enough where the plot moving forward will be altered. I am glad that they have a writer whose main job is to work out the longterm implications of every change, so I have some faith that the story they are telling will work out on it's own two feet.

But going for the books, starting at the beginning is the way to go, and treat it as a separate story. Going through the audio book really hits home to me how unadaptable, in any realistic sense, the story is by the book: too much interiority to work the same on film, it is too literary to work straight across mediums.

 

[Mercurius]

Yup. Confusing and jumbled. More like a haphazard conglomeration of survivors from a world-apocalypse forced to live together than a tight-nit community with a shared history. I just didn't buy it I guess.

Yep. This would have made sense if the apocalypse occurred a few hundred years before, but it actually occurred several thousand years before.

 

[Mercurius]

Was this close to the ending of book 1. Would I be completely lost if I picked up book 2

I partially agree with Parmandur, but think you could also find a good plot summary of book 1, and then start reading with book 2.

But you may find just reading book 1 enjoyable - it has a lot more depth than the show.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Good final season episode, but it left me pretty confused as a book reader. I'll admit it's been quite a while since Eye of the World and the Great Hunt, but as I recall ...

• Morainne wasn't stilled at the end, right? And weren't all the kids with her?
• Rand does wander off, I think? I'm forgetting.
• The Horn was not in Fal Dara (I don't recall where it was, just that it eventually turns up and my favorite character eventually blows it)
• Wasn't the broken seal in a box with the Dragon's regalia? And the Eye was a giant pool of saidin?

I don't mind the changes ... just wondering how the Great Hunt becomes the Great Hunt.

The Forerunners arriving was awesome though.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Yep. This would have made sense if the apocalypse occurred a few hundred years before, but it actually occurred several thousand years before.

There were two semi-apocalypses since then, each about 1000 years apart, the Trolloc Wars and Artur Hawkwing's conquests. Each wrecked nations and sent populations all over.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Good final season episode, but it left me pretty confused as a book reader. I'll admit it's been quite a while since Eye of the World and the Great Hunt, but as I recall ...

• Morainne wasn't stilled at the end, right? And weren't all the kids with her?
• Rand does wander off, I think? I'm forgetting.
• The Horn was not in Fal Dara (I don't recall where it was, just that it eventually turns up and my favorite character eventually blows it)
• Wasn't the broken seal in a box with the Dragon's regalia? And the Eye was a giant pool of saidin?

I don't mind the changes ... just wondering how the Great Hunt becomes the Great Hunt.

The Forerunners arriving was awesome though.

Moiraine appears to have been shielded and not stilled from the way the weaves looks. In the books neither happened, and, yes everyone went to the Eye, but besides Rand, no one did anything important there (everyone else either ran or were taken out by the Forsaken within seconds).

The Horn was at the Eye. Moving it to Fal Dara is no big difference...

Rand went off on his own in The Dragon Reborn. He may just meet up with everyone hunting the Horn, or they may just have him do his TDR plot and have him go straight to Tear (via Cairhien, as Cairhien characters have been cast).

 

[Maxperson]

The Horn was at the Eye. Moving it to Fal Dara is no big difference...

Other than completely diminishing the mystery of the horn and where it was. I think it was a bad move to remove it from the Eye of the World.

 

[Mercurius]

There were two semi-apocalypses since then, each about 1000 years apart, the Trolloc Wars and Artur Hawkwing's conquests. Each wrecked nations and sent populations all over.

And? 1000 or 3000 years ago doesn't make that much of a difference. Either way, a population in a small mountain community would be more homogenous.

 

[TheSword]

And? 1000 or 3000 years ago doesn't make that much of a difference. Either way, a population in a small mountain community would be more homogenous.

Of all the things I find jarring about this series, skin colour of the cast definitely isn’t on the list. Everyone mixed because they got over their racism 3000 years before. People aren’t going to start segregating again.

The fact that there is almost no foreshadowing, probably because of a desperate need to avoid exposition. Means there’s no build up to the Horn of the Hunt.