To be honest, this thread is one of the most negative I've read. In other places, there's a split between people liking and hating the series.

It's been a while, but I've read the books at least 2-3 times. Watched it with two people who've read the first few books and then stopped. We've all enjoyed the show and cannot wait for season 2.

Are there changes? Yes.
Do you see the modern influence? Yes.
Are there some changes I cannot get behind myself? Yes.
Do I understand why some people hate the show? Yes.

All that doesn't stop me from enjoying. Am on a rewatch now and am re-reading the first book at the same time. This will definitely highlight all the changes for me, but I'm not worried it will stop my liking of the show.

So my suggestion would be: Watch the trailer(s) and check whether you're excited or worried (about the change in emphasis already seen there). Ask yourself whether you're okay with an adaptation that takes a lot of liberties. If so, just try the first few episodes and see whether it's your thing.

 

The final action scene could've been a lot more intense, and I do wish they'd showcase Rand's power more, but it wasn't the end of the world.
I'll agree on the Rafe disdain; the dude's response to people disliking the show is stupid as fuck.

I still think the show was fun. I enjoyed it, and I'll watch more.

 

I'd say we're all fine with an adaption making narrative abridgements to take a book to the screen. What we're not okay with is the adaption making fundamental changes that undermine the entire plot, for no reason at all other than caprice.

 

@LostInThought I was on board with this line of thinking until they gave Tarwin's Gap to a side character. I could handle the changes because I assumed there would be payoff and that they were made for the sake of an adaptation.

But here's the thing, if you were to ask fans two years ago what scenes you are most excited to see on screen from book one (heck even the whole series) Tarwin's Gap would've been in the top five. That scene should've been a very similar equivalent to Infinity War when Thor shows up. In terms of emotion and special effects.

To me that that didn't happen, and worse, was given to a side character who died...shows Rafe doesn't care about how other fans enjoyed the show. He has his specific ideal of what this should be and come hell or high water he's implementing it.

Giving Tarwin's Gap to Lady Amalisa quickly becomes giving Falme to Morgase or some shit.

It's a fundamental disconnect.

It's literally the Rian Johnson playbook. So focused on the story that -he- wants to tell that he forgets there are fans that are there primarily to see things on screen that they've been waiting decades for.

That's why I had to drop.

 

Since there are book fans who like the show, the first part is at least debatable. I also highly doubt there was no reason, if you are talking about the changes in episode 8. Possibilities include making the finale less confusing, concern about power levels this early in the series and adding something to do for the rest of the cast. I think at least some of those were actually stated by Judkins. You might argue that all of those are bad reasons or just not sufficient for the changes, and I might even agree - but I do not agree that there was no reason at all.

In general, I'm just not impressed how some of the critics exaggerate their reasoning. You can express your dislike or even hate without making general statements about subjective stuff. I think it cheapens good points made in the same posts.
This is a general observation including many posts seen on other boards. But I feel the above quote is an example for it.

@Arthellion: Fair enough. For me, my enjoyment of the books mostly isn't about specific scenes, but the different journeys all the characters have and all the places they visit on their way. This makes me a lot more flexible in what I can stomach in terms of changes, especially this early on.

 

Undermining the plot of the books can be forgiven, in the loosest sense of the world, but not when the method used to undermine the books falls flat or creates corners the writers have to 'One Power' themselves out of. Inconsistencies and horse shit, every time.

The realists among us, who enjoy the books, never expected or anticipated a 1:1 adaption from the books. But the list of plot holes and inconsistencies every episode is a mile long, and the changes made haven't been justifiable at all. All the changes have done is cheapen the story in the new TV medium.

I'm more embarassed, than anything else.

 

I'm curious if anyone here has read the comic adaptation of the Eye of the World.

Obviously it can't fit all stuff from the book, but it does a pretty decent job, IMO.

 

I disagree with this, because I think you're giving Judkins too much slack. Giving other characters stuff to do is fine, but there was no reason to do half of what was done in the show. Why replace Caemlyn with Tar Valon when it meant cutting plot-relevant character introductions in favor of 40 minutes of total nonsense? Why state that a woman could be the Dragon Reborn when it completely undermines the plot? Why turn Nyneave and Lan into a tawdry soap opera? Why ruin Tarwin's Gap when everyone could have been doing cool things with the Green Man at the Eye? Why are the two Forsaken who should have been killed there now still alive, I guess?

There aren't any justifiable reasons for any of this. It's just bad writing.

 

To offer my thoughts: I reread the books in 2020 so it was fairly fresh, but I watched the show with my mom who hasn't read them yet and so I got a sense of what a non book reader got from it.

I enjoyed the middle of the season, the intro episode was a little but rushed and there was some weird editing. I think that this was originally intended to be much longer and was drastically cut post production.

The characters for the most part are fairly in tune. There are some fairly extreme exceptions:
Lan is far far more emotive than described, but he only interacts with nynaeve. It is really annoying that they cut all the blademaster lore/caemlyn/training the boys out just so that Lan actually speaks more than half a sentence to the main characters the series...

Perrin: the show utterly ruined perrin. The wife thing, the Egwene love triangle, they cut the entire thing with Elias so he doesn't get to have an alternative view from the tinkers, they cut his AXE the entire crux of his worldview? And then the actor himself (I'm to lazy to Google the names now) is particularly awful, I think 80% of perrins screentime he just stands awkwardly in the background with his mouth half open and his back hunched. He is supposed to be the most introspective of the 3 tavaren, but in this show he's just an idiot, especially in ep 8 whe he just stands around uselessly in a scene that was clearly intended for Mat, who had been the only character to actually speak to Fain before that...

Mat: the whole constantly stealing shit including some casual graverobbing was really terrible. Mat in the books is the irresponsible one, who wants to joke and drink and fool around, and he changes to the one who is probably the most responsible of the three. One other thing is that the actor leaving the show while filming caused eps 6/7/8 to clearly undergo extreme rushed edits that were hit by covid problems too. So there is a lot of blame on that.

Rand: he really doesn't do anything this entire season. Even his final climactic "battle" is mostly moraine threatening to kill him while they run the cameraman in a circle. The dragon mystery that the show had been trying to build was revealed in the most anticlimactic way, and there are a lot of Rand's storyline that was utterly removed so the character mostly just kind of tagged along in his own story.

Egwene: I despise this Character in the books and the show somehow managed to make me dislike her more. At least the book version had flaws. The TV show version can heal death/burnout, can link into a circle by smell alone (I'm guessing, she never really got any training beyond the absolute bare minimum) and is apparently so politically astute that she gets to meet the amerlin seat and show off how much better she is at politics too.
Egwene in book 1 is a bit of a teacher's pet, who is so obsessed with her potential power as an ais sedai she abandons her mentor without even much thought, who flirts with the tinker boys openly and who is just as ignorant of the world as the rest of the eamonds fielders. The show instead made mary sue.


The show had to make some cuts, the book is LOTR length in scale, a lot of the main characters don't really do too much in EotW in the last third and especially in the climax, and they were reduced to 8 episodes, so I can understand some of the choices they made in terms of introduction of characters and where things happen. Tar Valon instead of caemlyn let them talk about the magic and the witches (to the non book people they are basically witches) where caemlyn is mostly just some politically intrigue. There is a lot of lore in WoT and the show really doesn't explain much very well. My mother had constant questions and complaints about how they didn't really explain much, especially the dragon and the magic system and especially what the whole point on the seal/ final battle was.


So all in all it was a moderately entertaining show that had a fairly botched ending, was 2/4 episodes too short,had some poor post production and made some pretty bad mistakes throughout. I will probably try to was the second season but if it remains this level of quality then I am out.