I’m looking forward to this as I’ll be going in utterly ignorant of the story. I’ve just never gotten to these.
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RTFT, already. The series is complete.
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Personal trebuchets.
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The TV series? Because that is what I’m talking about.
You mentioned the book series, and that you only got to book 7. Then said you don’t want to watch the TV series until the series is complete. Given the order of your phrasing, it was at least ambiguous if not more logical that you meant the book series.
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Fair enough. I abandoned the books because they became tedious - I was reluctant to do so having invested in reading thousands of pages of the series.
I’m dubious of whether the TV series will be successful enough to get funding to complete shooting of all the books.
I hope it does. I mean, it’s not like it’s on Fox…
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RIP Space: Above and Beyond, Firefly…
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Preach it, Shepherd.
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Magic, duh!
Whether you’re a fan or not, this does feel like a distinct risk with adapting the series. If they film one book per series, it would need to do extremely well to stay commissioned for all 14 volumes. If the show runners condense things to cover ground more quickly, then there would be a lot of things cut out.
As I said, I’m not a fan of the books, but it will be interesting to see which way they go
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It starts picking up again after book 7.
I eventually went back and finished the series just because Sanderson finished it, and I enjoy his writing. The wheel of time is ambitious, but I found it disappointing and in serious need of editing. It’s no coincidence, I think, that the books get longer and less interesting, and then tighter and more interesting again. Even at the time, I found the series’s handling of sexuality problematic (magic as stereotyped attitudes towards male and female sexuality, Ninavae’s complete attitude change once she’s getting some on the regular), and that hasn’t gotten better over time.
It’s a series I always wanted to like more than I did. It’s one of those series that I like better in my head than on paper, which makes me hopeful that a tighter, reinterpreted telling could be really good.
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It’s tough to take seriously commenters who criticize The Slog and then pre-emptively criticize TV writers for eliminating The Slog. Pick a position and stick with it.
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Who’s criticising? I’m acknowledging that it will be a problem that the show runners will have to address.
My position is that it will be interesting to see how they approach adapting a 14 volume series, given the pressures to keep a reasonable pace going. It may turn out to make the story far more palatable to me; the books would have benefited from a far more ruthless editing in the first place.
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Am I the only one who got severely disenchanted with these books when realizing just how foundational sexism is to them? The “generic farmboy is the Chosen One who will save the world” trope is kind of bad enough, but the whole “oh, let’s just give him three wives, as they all just fall that deeply for his utter blandness” thing (on top of the weakly explained and underexplored (at least up until the last books I read) “magic knows your sex” thing) made the whole thing unmissable even to mid-teens aged me. Granted that it’s been nearly 20 years since I read naything in this series my memory is no doubt full of holes, but … yeah.
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Yes, although the last few books Jordan wrote didn’t advance the story much.
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Or most things on Netflix at this stage. They crunch the numbers and don’t lose as many subscribers for cancelling as they gain from switching the budget to novelty.
That said a lot of multi series TV shows are running on fumes really early on anyway. It’s rare a series manages to end decently. GoT is the generality, not the exception (and most of the shit that was wrong with that last series was wrong with most of them. My theory is that they relied too much on two young actors to carry the last series. They seemed to forget how many great older actors with serious chops gave the ridiculous series gravitas and credibility).
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That series could go on forever. The trailer looks good though.
All your points are valid, but the whole dysfunction of it, to me, was a statement that the society’s built-in sexism was what propagated their subjugation to evil, and that great things could only be accomplished when everyone came together, put aside their perceived differences, and truly cooperated. So the message, while ham-fisted, was anti-sexist.
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I guess we’re not worry about spoilers despite all those who haven’t read the books?
Admittedly part of the reason that never really bothered me is because it never actually happened, did it? He and Elayne were a couple for a few weeks and then they went their separate ways, only meeting again IIRC twice before the end. He and Aviendha were never a couple (though they had a one night stand they both regretted) and she likewise left to be Elayne’s BFF, only seeing him a couple of times afterwards. Min’s the only one he has a long-term romantic relationship with; granted she’s also the only one with the freedom to pursue one.
Now obviously there’s more to unpack there, like how it’s probably only because of her visions that Min is accepting her boyfriend having flings with two other women who are mostly absent from their lives (well, that and his death - and the end of the world - being imminent), or that Min’s viewing promised that at some point Elayne would be married to Rand and sharing him with Min and Aviendha, Aiel wedding customs, first-sister ceremonies, etc… that all imply that “three wives” is where it might eventually end up. But it’s not part of the story the books tell.
I suppose this is up to interpretation, but mine was that her attitude change had more to do with no longer having to keep her anger simmering like the Hulk in order to wield the One Power freely… before then she would have been actively trying to get angry at every little thing to feed her temper.
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