Spoiler warning: SPOILERS FOR ALL BOOKS. If you’re reading this, I’m assuming you’ve read everything. You’ve been warned. Also spoilers for episode 1, obviously. Please no spoilers for later in the show.
I finally made myself get around to starting to watch the Wheel of Time - I’m bad at television - and decided to do a post with my reactions to the first episode. I might end up doing one per episode, or maybe just a wrapup after I finish the season. We’ll see.
I am a long time WoT superfan. I first picked up the series in 1996, a few months before A Crown of Swords came out. I am a veteran of the legendary flamewars on the old rec.arts.sf.written.robert-jordan Usenet board. I have no idea how many times I’ve read the series; I was reading it more or less continuously, sometimes jumping around and sometimes a full read-through, for years. This is the birthday cake my mom ordered for me for my last birthday.
I’m also pretty forgiving towards changes in adaptations. I’ll be ok if the show sucks - that doesn’t hurt the books at all. All I’m really hoping for is a few cool things to see on screen instead of just in my head, maybe some good performances by the actors.
First comes my reactions towards the show as I was watching it. More detailed takes at the end. Let’s get this wheel turning!
I like the opening sequence with the Red Ajah gentling the male channeler.
They get right into it certainly. Interesting that the emphasis is on “who is the dragon?”
Four ta’veren? I’m guessing Egwene is #4, which is honestly entirely appropriate.
The Two Rivers folk are all darker-skinned. I’ve worked pretty hard to avoid all of this nonsense, but it fits perfectly with how they're described in the books. They repeatedly emphasize that Rand is too fair-skinned to be of Manetheren blood. Lan being Asian is also appropriate, given the Tibetan inspirations of Malkier. That’s all I have to say on this topic.
Ha! Egwene gets shoved in the river, followed by an obvious saidar metaphor when she stops fighting the currents.
Bela! Greatest of all fantasy horses (with all due respect to Bill).
Perrin’s married already? Very interested to see where they go with that.
Appreciate the inclusion of Thom’s line describing war as when “fools kill other fools for foolish causes.”
Some not-subtle misdirection towards Egwene as being the Dragon. Curious to hear what some non-readers thought, if anyone wants to weigh in.
I appreciate the homage towards the beginning of The Fellowship of the Ring with the children running up to greet the wagon arriving in town.
Burn you Rand, stop whispering. I can’t hear you.
So Nynaeve is an outsider, and knows that listening to the wind is connected to the Power. I’m not sure I like this, but I’m also not sure it’s important. We’ll see where they go with it.
I think I like what they’re doing with Mat. Further thoughts later.
Hi Narg! Bye Narg! (I assume that was Narg. Narg smart.)
I appreciate that they show the Two Rivers folk rallying.
Fun fact: those aren’t special effects. Rosamund Pike can just do that.
Oh Light. Faile. Too many thoughts, see below.
Nynaeve is dead? I totally missed that. The lack of a body has me suspicious. Addendum: I skipped back through the episode and she’s dragged offscreen by a trolloc. She’s fine, she’ll show up later.
Cutting out a lot of the mystery. Good and necessary change to get to the heart of the plot.
So now for my overall thoughts. Visually things were good. I like how they’re showing channeling - it feels like an appropriate level of visual flashiness. As far as casting, so far I’ve got no problems with it. I like Rosamund Pike’s Moiraine quite a lot, and think Daniel Henney has a great look for Lan (in my head I’ve always had Ken Watanabe in the role). Everyone else I’m reserving judgment on.
I like how they’re handling Mat’s character. If you pay attention in the books, you’ll notice that his irresponsible reputation is entirely due to his behavior as a kid. Starting from when he gets rid of the dagger, Mat never once ducks a responsibility. This is in spite of what people think of him and what he thinks of himself. He is in fact the quickest of everyone to jump into trouble for someone else’s sake. So in the show, he comes from a very unhappy home, is shown to be a petty thief … and is also fiercely protective of his younger sisters. It feels like this could be a good way to handle the character when (owing to this being a visual instead of written medium) we can’t have his internal monologue emphasizing how much he isn’t a hero while he’s in the middle of doing heroic things.
Perrin. That was shocking. I totally get what they’re trying to do here, but am skeptical at the same time. Much as I like Faile(and I know I’m in the minority here, but I’m also totally right. Faile haters are entirely incorrect and totally misunderstand that relationship) I also recognize that there’s not going to be room for all the characters, and Faile is in the second tier. Fair enough.
So they wanted to give Perrin that inner conflict with his own willingness to use violence but not take 10 books to get there. They wanted to give him a visceral hatred of his ax. They wanted to make him all brood-y. This is certainly a way to do all of that. Is it going to work? I honestly don’t know.
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