A thread for discussions of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time. Jeff and I might spend a lot of time between spoiler tags… sorry.

Wheel of Time TV show on Amazon Prime, Season 2 release date has been set for September 1, 2023.

I did finish the first series, so ok then. I will need a MASSIVE recap.

Is this going to be sort of the episode by episode type thread, or a more broad in depth discussion for people who are really familiar with the content? I've read the entire series probably a 7-8 times over the course of my life, and think it's probably the most ambitious single work in Fantasy ever undertaken. But that ambition and some of the flaws are really going to make the TV adaptation really challenging. While I think there's going to the opportunity to address some of the bloat in the series through the TV, I don't know that it will be able to keep all the nuance.

I do know that they TV series is going to be able to correct the two biggest issues with Jordan's writing though, so I'm hopeful it finds its footing and is able to get a full run. Because it will end a lot better than GoT did, but it's a slower start.

Oh, and I really hope it doesn't suffer from the overlapping release of Dune at the same time as season 2.

It can be either or both. Tuna wants a recap of season 1. There can be discussion of season 1 until season 2 starts. I've been spending a lot of time during the last year listening to various WoT podcasts and YouTube channels. It's interesting to compare some of the content by people well-versed in the books, vs. people who never read the books. And where a person read book one after having watched season one.

What are these two biggest issues of Jordan's writing of which you speak?

The Robertishness and the Jordanishness.

#Zing #HotBurn #SickTake #TheUltimateZing

The first and most obvious is what is lovingly referred to as "The Slog" by fans of the books. Not as bad as Martin writing himself into a corner that he doesn't know how to get out of - since Jordan did make his way through - but for about 4 novels in the middle of the Wheel of Time, the characters go around in circles, with very little plot progression. Now that the entire series is out, and it can be skimmed through or over - or brutally edited, assuming the TV series gets that far - it's not as bad, but when all we got for 10 years was repetitive non-progression as it was released, the slog broke a lot of people who started out fans of the series.

The second thing is a style choice in his writing - Jordan sets his scene through descriptions of furniture, food, and fashion. Obsessively so. And while I am willing to acknowledge that in a world with a dozen on page countries, another handful of cross-country societies, and a number of "over the hills and far away" empires that appear on screen, that is incredibly important to help the readers remember just where in the world they are. But that generates literally hundreds of pages of description that just aren't necessary in a broadcast world - Costume and set designers do all this visually, and has been said since time immemorial - a picture is worth 1,000 words.

So even just with those edits, I can see how they can easily trim 14 books down to 9-10 seasons. But since they've only planned for 64 episodes in total (8x8), then there are still significant cuts from the complexity of the world required to fit the window. Which sub-plots, characters, and countries are going to be cut are a major source of speculation for fans of the books. but there's no point discussing what may be as this turning of the Wheel occurs.


and yes, we are breathlessly waiting to see which of the particular Robert Jordan, mmm, peccadillos shall we call them, make it onto the screen. It's not HBO, so some can assume to be out, but some of the others may remain. we shall see...

A long winded answer arose on the internet. This answer was not the beginning - there are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time - but is was a beginning....

The Wheel of Time turns, as history turns to legend, legend turns to myth, and even the myths of an age are long forgotten by the time that age comes again... In one age, called the third age by some, a pair of mysterious strangers ride into a small village on the night before the spring festival...

The first thing to know about the first season of the Wheel of Time is that it is effectively the first 1/8th of a single massive story, and so is plotted accordingly. Yes, it has seasonal arcs, but they are touchstones on a single journey, not multiple journeys. And thus season 1 is a focused on introducing the characters and world building - as much and as fast as possible - to ensure that you have context for the rest of the story.

The second thing to know about the first season of the Wheel of Time is that it hews fairly closely to the first novel - the Eye of the World - and it very much follows the tropes of the hero's journey. although, in the case of the TV series, we aren't meant to be sure who the hero is.

As background, the magic of the world is divided in two halves - Saidar (female) and Saidin (male) - and it is the conflicting pressures between these two forces that cause the Wheel to turn and time to advance. And if you think that sounds like Yin and Yang, it is. 3,000 years before our story begins, during what is known as the Age of Legends, the Aes Sedai discovered and freed what they thought was a third force that could be used by the sexes together, but that was ultimately revealed to be the corrupted personification of Evil. In an effort to re-contain this evil, the Dragon Lews Therin and his hundred companions led an effort to re-seal the Dark One and his disciples, called the Forsaken, in his prison. While ultimately successful, the backlash of the sealing corrupted (the TV series is avoiding the word taint like the plague) the male half of the One Power, dooming any male channeler to madness. and for 500 years, these insane channelers broke the world. Oceans boiled, mountains were raised and fell; cities turned to glass...and men cursed the name Dragon...

18 years before the story begins, an Aes Sedai seer foresaw that the Dragon had been reborn upon the slopes of the mountain that he created in his death madness.

So, our story opens with Moiraine, one of the legendary Aes Sedai, and her Warder Lan, as they journey to the small, isolated village of Edmond's Field in search of someone they believe to be the Dragon Reborn. While there, the village is attacked by minions of the Dark One, and Moiraine learns that the Dark One's minions are hunting 5 young people. So they round up the 5 youngsters, with the goal of taking them to the Aes Sedai city of Tar Valon, since one of them could be the Dragon Reborn.

While on the journey, our intrepid fellowship experiences hardships, become separated, learns more about themselves, and discover things that result in each of them believing that they might be the Dragon Reborn, and lays the ground work for each of their character arcs that will play out across the series. All while introducing us to as much of the world, it's magic, it's politics, and it's history as they can fit in.

And by the end of season 1, we know for sure that indeed, the Dragon Reborn rides forth on the wings of time, and that the time of the Dark One's escape is approaching...

In the interest of full disclosure, I am completely unfamiliar with the work of Robert Jordan.

I have a hard time finding the slog nowadays when I re-listen to the series. I recall my frustration with a couple of those books back when they were first coming out, especially when some of the main guys didn't even appear in a book because Jordan decided to break the parallel threads into separate books. And most especially because I had to wait two years between books. But now that I know where the story goes, and what the point is of various side characters, and not having to worry about maybe never getting an ending of the story... I have no problem going through those books. There are some vital things that happen during the slog, and some parts of the story that I quite like.

However, the show will indeed have to cut many things down to fit into the time they are allowed, and I can think of some things from the slog that I wouldn't mind getting the axe. Or at least a massive trimming.

In effect, that is what GoT did with books 4 and 5. It was very much a change for the better. The problems set on when they realised they couldn't write the main characters as well as Martin could, so they turned Tyrion into a fucking idiot.

The slog killed me as a reader the first time around. Once the whole thing was finished, I finally got around to the audio books and listened to the full series start to finish over the course of nearly a year. I listened in my car during commutes and while walking for exercise most days. That slog was still...well, a slog at times, but much easier to get through knowing this was completed. There are huge sections of books that can be easily excised for TV runtime. For one, I remember an entire chapter about a guard watching the entourage of our main characters walk by, while we got to be in his head and learn so much about him...and he is totally irrelevant. I think they could have no problem with 8 seasons, if they get to finish it. This isn't Netflix, so I have higher hopes that they will be allowed to do so.

I started the first book, The Eye of the World, last night.
Fell asleep pretty quickly. Didn't get much past the Foreword. I was pretty tired, though.

Yeah, new books are not great for bedtime when you are tired.

I was listening to a video today where the person listed her favorite Wheel of Time characters. I've seen such before, and many cases where peoples' favorites changed during re-reads -- although usually this is because they are older during re-reads (I was already an adult when I first read the series, so I don't think my opinions of the characters changed that much upon re-readings of the series).

But I'll list my top characters:

1. Mat. He starts off the fool, but I always found his point of view chapters the most entertaining of the three main guys.
2. Loial. Ogier are cool.
3. Lan. As cool as you can get and not be an ogier.
4. Verin. My favorite Aes Sendai. Perhaps an unusual choice, but with a great ending.
5. Cadsuane. Also my favorite Aes Sedai. Seems like she is more appreciated by people as they get older.

For me it's a bit different.

1. Egwene. But this took until very late in the series to happen. She was somewhat annoying until but from there she took off.
2. Loial. Impossible to hate and has the best lines.
3. Nynaeve. Her braid tugging coarseness and development arc drew me in.
4. Perrin. Bullish loyalty and conviction to his cause.
5. Mat, because of his personality...

Wheel of Time Season 2 trailer 2 has dropped:


They are undoubtedly going to make many changes to the story in order to fit much of books two and three into eight episodes, so it will be interesting to see what they do.

“You are the water that turns the Wheel itself.” This seems to be an incorrect interpretation of the WoT world system. As I recall, it is saidin and saidar (the male and female halves of the One Power) working in conjunction and opposition that drives the Wheel of Time.

They really should be given 10 episodes. There is a lot of fat to be trimmed from the books, of course, with no real loss of anything with the main story...but it seems like an awful lot to cram into 8 episodes. Not sure that the writers really get this material either.

Thank you. Been too long since I read the book and have no desire to read again. Concentrating is hard yo.

I don't know whether I will watch season 2: the violence and cruelty may not be worth it, even though I enjoyed the first season. Also, the ending (of season 1) was annoying on several levels.

Which aspects of the ending of season 1 were annoying? There were a few things that went wrong in production (because of a little thing called the COVID pandemic) that are hopefully anomalies that won't happen again in season 2.