Season 2 of Wheel of Time on Prime is nearly here! I have a few fears and hopes based on my feelings from season 1. Hopefully my thoughts make sense. Let me know your thoughts in the comments!!
I came up with an idea that would allow for diversity for almost every character while still keeping the extras for each region visibly different. Mat and Egwene could have be of similar ancestral background. Perrin, Nynaeve and Avienda could have been refugees from another land. They can even add that for characters after the fact to this day for Avienda.
My disappointments with season 1 stuck with me and forced me to have lower expectations for season 2. Going into season 2 not expecting them to follow all the story beats has helped me enjoy it more than season 1 so far. Now if something deviates wildly from the books, I don’t have to get hung up on it for too long.
The Warders are willing to accept the cost of being a Warder so that they could have the life and purpose of being a Warder. The Warders also have the benefit of health and longer life*, and access to healing usually as well. The world isn’t fair. You can’t sacrifice a Queen to gain a knight.
The world isn’t fair, for sure. But I think the Wheel of Time is a great exploration of power dynamics, and the world being unfair isn’t enough of an argument for me to justify certain treatment of people. The seanchan could make the same argument for their enslavement of channelers. It’s good to question how these dynamics affect the people involved.
@@jsbrads1 sure, but using the warder bond can have devastating emotional effects if the Aes Sedai dies, which could make a person question the use of the Warder bond.
@@jsbrads1 I also think a lot of my motivations for feeling this way is when a warder is bonded without consent. That’s a big enough charge to ask of someone, let alone force it on them.
@@melanietahna even the Aes Sedai say forcing the Warder bond is wrong now and excluding Alanna, it maybe hasn’t been done in many hundreds of years, so except for Alanna that isn’t a problem.
I'm definitely in the minority of not caring about most of the changes they made. The only one i didnt like was the is the dragon one of the girls mystery. That made no sense. Everything else i either didnt mind or understood they made changes because of the change of medium. Season 2 does seem stronger so far though
I simply cannot get over the casting, the idea that a tiny farming village where the villagers never travel more than a couple days ride would contain every possible race just breaks my suspension of disbelief. The only reason I'd have a preference on casting would be because we've had 20+ years of art showing us these characters, but if they just made the village where the old blood of manetheren runs strong if they just represented them as a people instead of being NYC it wouldn't really matter the race as long as rand stood out. It really concerned me when I saw the casting and its just a constant reminder as the writers continue to disregard Robert jordan's txt in favor of their own story. I also have an issue with portrayal of anything more adult in the shows, be it pillow friends or discussing threesomes or encouraging a warder to try out homosexuality or whatever because that is not the type of book this series is. Robert jordan's steamiest scenes amount to little more than a kiss, even the concept of pillow friends is never really nailed down that it is sexual and I think just randomly tossing some lame softcore porn into this series is gross and not because of the porn but because this isn't game of thrones. These books have a bit of innocence where it's left to your imagination. It's like Imagine lord of the rings only lets toss in softcore porn... why on earth would you do that? I have lots of other complaints about this show, but what infuriates me with Rafe Judkins reimagining of WoT the most is that it is ensuring that we'll never get a proper retelling. I hoped for something that resembled the love for the source material that Peter Jackson displayed for LotR but this is far from it. Its just frustrating.
I can totally understand these feelings about the show, and I do wish the innocence of characters could have been better maintained. When I consider the race of the characters, I’ve always thought about the fact that this world they live in is one growing out of the ashes of a very advanced world. A world where people intermingled and could travel (or Travel) to different parts of the world, to different cultures, with ease. So for me it makes sense that Rand stands out with his classic red hair, and the others are different from each other, but not as much as Rand. I also think the acting is phenomenal. Especially going into season 2, I’m happy we have Egwene played by such a talented woman, rather than someone more flat, but who happens to be white. Not that those were our options, but it personally works for me.
I'm about to go grab lunch with a buddy and rant about season 2 ep 1 It looks like the problems with season 1 will carry on. I question whether any thought was put into the script. They throw away the original character motivations, scrap inciting incidents, and can't represent traveling through the world. And where's the money? Game of thrones was cheap and kinda old now, but looks more cinematic
I hate what the showrunner has done. So many unnecessary changes. I havent seen s2 ep 1. Last season filmed mid pandemic and im hopeful many of its issues were due to that. Having said that, i could see myself liking this if it didnt have the WoT name. As an adaptation of the books, i dont though. Rands mom was a badass btw.
From what I heard, they finished filming s1ep6 before the shutdown. They also had Mat quit with no notice at about the same time. I wouldn’t expect editing to be impacted by the shutdown.
Dislikes: The new story they decided to tell, completely removing all of the scenes I wanted to see from the books. The terrible writing, be it the dialogue, the love triangle or just the huge number of times they contradicted themselves: "Don't touch anything" as they touch everything walking through the blight. Very poor fight scenes, no understanding of what armour is... Budget feel of the show, early Game of Thrones or The Last Kingdom are massively better productions despite having a similar/smaller budget. I have no likes and will not be watching season 2, I'll watch people talk about it but I'll not support Amazon with a view. I don't have strong feelings about the casting, as I've said before the only one I didn't like was Min. Could the actress have pulled it off if they changed her look? I'm still not sure she could have sold me as the character that saved the world. I'm in London England so I live and work with people from all over the world, I don't give shows "bonus points" for diversity, it is not the 1950's anymore. I would say though that if every place we visit in the show is diverse then how can you judge where anyone might be from and what culture they represent? Not a big problem but I think Game of Thrones did better by having distinct lands. Hope you can find something you like in Season 2.
I definitely feel that with the dialogue, it took me out of the story multiple times. And there’s so many obvious errors that it feels like they just don’t GET the whole point of it.
@@melanietahna It has been suggested that Rafe and Amazon were aiming the show at a casual viewer, one who would have the show on but also be on their phone, people who just wouldn't notice the writing or really care about the Wheel of Time. That seems strange to me when you have a budget of $10m an episode but it is Amazon and from other shows there does seem to be a culture of "we've bought this great IP", "we've signed Rosamund Pike and Daniel Henney" what more do we need to do...? It is possible that it is down to Rafe's lack of experience in which case in later seasons (if they get them) there will be an improvement. From what I hear the second season dialogue is a lot of sexual references, maybe we will get your views on "pink flowers" and the benefits in the bedroom of having mutliple warders... 🙄 My preferred theory for now is that Rafe lacks the talent, he did write two of the worst episodes himself. He may be good at self promotion (and we have all worked with people like that) but that he can't walk the walk. He probabaly doesn't care too much as it is likely just a job to him 😢 Love or hate them as people (often talk of bullying) but you need a show runner who really cares if you are going to launch a great new show.
@@step4018 I totally felt like the actual fans were not the target audience and man they are really missing the point. What’s funny to me is that if they make it for the fans, and give themselves to it in love for the books and in dedication to the work, they will make so. much. money. But they prefer a lazier method, it almost sounds like. And I think a casual viewer is going to want to continue watching something, when they recognize that, “Wait, people love this thing and it’s so compelling. I want to keep watching!” So so frustrating.
@@melanietahna What you describe is why we got the huge success for Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings. Casual fans are drawn into a show (especially fantasy) when they hear all the fans talking about how amazing it is. Lazy? It does seem like it with the lack of script editing and choreography. It is also true when it came to the extras, having people in the background or as part of the fights makes a big difference. They are in Prague and there are lots of attractive people locally they could have got dressed up to be part of the show. The Last Kingdom was shot in Hungary and they had loads of great extras... Frustrating yes, but that's always been a part of the WoT fandom, I mean all those people who like Egwene as a character 🤷♂🤣
@@step4018 maybe later, in another turning of the wheel, our children’s children will get a better adaptation 😅 and I just finished book 12 so I’ve really been enjoying Egwene’s character lately. I’m interested to discuss her more in my videos!
