Wheel of Time (spoilers)

[crazy canuck]

Well GoT it is not.  They didn't do a great job building the world for the viewer and what was the point of all the side stories if Rand was all that mattered.  The equivalent of the great green blob saving the day ruined the ending  - why was there a need for the sacrifice at the gap?

[Grey Fox]

Because things they haven't told us in the show.

Egwene and Nynaeve are more powerful than anyone can imagine more even than some forsakens.

[Sheilbh]

So I quite liked it. More than most of you I think

I've not read the books so can't compare - but while I get the criticism of the young actors I'm not sure any of them have much to do in this season or any real character development. From OvB's point it seems like that's an issue in the books. But basically from the end of episode one to the end of the season they broadly seem to just be the same people which does give actors a lot to do. They go from one place to another in the plot but from a character perspective I don't think there's much for them to do really.

The one exception to that is Mat who I think was really good. Maybe there could have been more on Perrin and the move to non-violence but I felt the bit with the travellers was a little too short for him to do much and then it doesn't come up again (because they're in the White Tower) for several episodes so I'm not sure. They also can't lean on knowing more and keeping secrets as a background bit of business in the way that Moiraine and Lan can, so I don't think the young actors have actually had much of a chance to show their range - compare with GoT and all of the Starks (and to an extent Joffrey who is a little one note) at episode one v the end of season one. There's quite a lot of character work and developments for those actors to get their teeth into.

Hopefullly that improves but if not, you might be right and they're just not that great.

The stuff I like though is the adult cast basically who I think are all very good. I also like the sense of a wider world that moves beyond the central narrative (which I don't think GoT actually does that well). And dropping enough (I hope) breadcrumb characters or possibly plots that look interesting and I hope come back to do more. I think that's going to be a huge challenge - on GoT I think they did do some of that but then tended to focus back on a core set of characters for brevity, but I think it hurt the later seasons.

It looks great as well - sets, costumes all of that are excellent.

And I'm a bit like Cel - I got the sense it was hitting it's stride by the end which is probably a good sign/that seems like the right plalce to be doing that.

Edit: Oh I slightly worry it's a little much on the CGI for the magic and they're not leaving themselves much place to go, but that could be nonsense.

Edit: Also as a knitwear person I LOVE Rand's jumper.

[Berkut]

The blight looked utterly terrible. I wonder who came up with that design?

[Threviel]

So... I watched the first 5 minutes or so.

The show starts with some guy in very impractical silly clothes running from some red-clothed women. The women can apparently use magic and instead of just stopping and holding with magic the guy they take down a mountain front of him and then they look evil and make him scream.

Then there's a panoramic shot of a valley with old sky scrapers overgrown and abandoned. Great shot, more of that.

Next shot there's a group of women sitting around talking. And wouldn't you know it, one of them has obvious elastic rubber bands on her shirt arms. Then they try to murder her.

In the next shot there's a dude aiming his bow at something and immediately drawing it back...

This stupid shit is Xena for the 20's.

[garbon]

[Threviel]

Due to boredom and sickness I've continued.

I have some forest and I sometimes do stuff with wood. I notice in the show that the houses seem timbered and that they've actually spent time with the roofs of the buildings. Those kind of wooden roofs are made by planing certain kinds of straight wood, around here pine. I've built such a roof on a tiny tiny shed of mine, just for fun and from what I can see that they actually spent time to mimick how they would have been built. (They are bad, but not on the level of elastic cloth bad).

Timbering and planing implies that that's how they work wood in Tworivers and that the production spent time to actually convey something on that order.

Those kind of wooden discs they use for the lamps on bel tine are cool. They are made by sawing a log athwart or how one would say it. That's the way we do it nowadays with chain saws and sawmills. It is not easy to do that with hand tools and it would be prohibitively expensive.

So the production didn't think things through enough.

In more seriousness the show actually picks up, I wouldn't have noticed the wood stuff if that wasn't a minor nerdery of mine. A bit more that half way through episode 1 and it's better than I thought.

[Threviel]

Finished it.

Far better than the trailer implied, most of the stupidities disappeared when they left Tworivers.

A solid 3/5, on par with Witcher.

[garbon]

I got around to finishing 2nd season. I thought it was more enjoyable than the first...all the candles in/around the stable scene notwithstanding.

[celedhring]

Yeah, the season started a bit slow I thought, but finishes quite strongly and it's a marked improvement over the first.

[garbon]

That was something that initially slowed me down - first couple eps were like, well this is alright, then it started picking up midway and I watched 3 eps in one day.

[crazy canuck]

Yeah, the season started a bit slow I thought, but finishes quite strongly and it's a marked improvement over the first.

Agreed

[Josquius]

I tried the first book once long ago. It didn't agree with me. A mix of the writing and teeny tiny font size.

Watching this though and near the end of s2. It's alright.

Two things I don't get though.

White cloaks. So they're some sort of... International inquisitors without a central church authority that roam the world, funded somehow, killing mages. Operating even right outside the mages tower and everyone in the world just.. Let's them get on with this?

The aiel. So they're your textbook fremen deserty sorts.... And they're mostly pale and ginger....
How? How can such a people exist at all?
It's not like this is an example of the show doing diversity wrong either as in the two rivers gang. Apparently it's core to the lore.
Yeah fantasy world of magic and all that. This is the least of the unrealistic things. But it's weird nonetheless.

[HVC]

The Aiel mentioned it was a punishment. No worse punishment for a ginger than Sun 


*Spoiler*


She can't touch a jug because she thinks she can use it as a weapon but can grab the magic necklace?