Understandable, lots of shows people love I don't find interesting. Curious, what is it you don't like?
Season 3 has been incredible all the way through. It's just so great. Spoiler Regarding Fain. I suspect that him pulling out and saving himself rather than going through with destroying the Two Rivers is going to lead to him splitting with the Dark and going his own way. He become a lot more interesting as a rogue element and by not letting Perrin kill him when he had the chance, I think we're going to get that in the show. Also, the part when Perrin and Faile joined up in the battle and the music started pumping in the background was pretty great. The hype worked for me. Regarding Loial, I think he's really dead. I get the vibe that it was more production driven (costs of expensive recurring characters, possibly actor availbility conflicts) that led to his early demise. Story-wise, Loial doesn't contribute much from here on out until the Stump at the end, so I can understand giving him an epid sendoff now in this adaptation.
Spoiler Agreed on Loial. They seemed to give him a nice hero moment there at the end, which would seem to suggest they are ending the character. I agree that he isn't really all that impactful for most of the book storylines, and honestly the whole "oh noes mom I don't want to marry that girl and settle down and stop my adventures" was kind of tedious in the books so I don't mind it being cut. Totally agree on the Perrin/Faile sequence. Faile's grin after he says "you can get the ones I miss" followed by the badassery of them working together to annihilate trollocs was *chef's kiss*. I like your theory on Fain. And I totally agree, he was way more fascinating with his own agency. And way more unpredictable as well. I was worried they kind of neutered him in the show because the actor they cast, to me, seems absolutely perfect to give the vibes. He's creepy and comes off as highly capable. I want to see more of him, just don't make him like any other "darkfriend" that's there as the Great Lord's servant. Very excited for season 4!
I didn't like the first season. I promised to give it another try. Everyone loves this show - but I find it incredibly boring.
No one was likeable in the first season. It improves afterwards. The setup was important but I forgot a lot of references while watching the 2nd season.
First season was awful, heavily affected by Covid and other issues. Season 2 was good, season 3 is great. It doesn't help the first book is worst of all in the series. That's why I'm curious the reason behind dislike. Some things get much better, others won't change. Like, if you dislike fantasy, then yeah, don't even try. If the show is just bad, then yes, season 2 gets much better, from the acting to the storylines.
It was funny to me, watching the first few episodes: so ok, the Dark is coming back after many years, and the White is getting together to fight it. Oh, and here's a huge army of Orcs Trollocs (can't spell Trolloc without Orc) trying to find the special thing (person) that makes the Dark Guy get powers again. It was Lord of the Rings again there for a while. I'll give it another shot since yall say it gets better.
The first book pretty much copied LOTR. The follow up books it's where it starts to diverge and become better, and so does the TV show. Maybe you could watch a recap of season 1 and save yourself a pretty tedious watch?
This was a deliberate choice by the original book author. Admittedly, the first book is one of the weaker books, but he intentionally started it off to mimic the Lord of the Rings plot to draw people in, then subverts it later. I would say that Wheel of Time and then Game of Thrones are probably the 2 main fantasy series from the 90’s that started to redefine modern fantasy. Show-wise, like others have said, season 1 had a lot of studio meddling (“make another Game of Thrones!”) and then COVID messed up filming. A few story changes related to those 2 factors caused some ripple effects, but Season 2 started course correction and gets significantly better. Season 3 has been the most book accurate, and has had the strongest production across the board, and is also hitting some of the strongest parts of the books. The show has really found its footing, so hopefully they keep it up. Season 1 lost a lot of people (understandable), but it’s really gotten excellent.
A lot of the characters I didn't like have turned around and made some good eps in S3. Prob with S1 is that many of them turned into self sabotaging plot zombies where the writers didn't build up why they would do those incredibly stupid things. It was noticeable in Walking Dead where we knew the characters but they'd pull mindless crap anyways to burn 1-3 episodes. Netflix shows really took it to the next level in order to stretch a typical movie plot into 4-9 episodes.
Question for those that maybe have been watching the show closer than I: has the show suggested that women are unable to see men's weaves and vice versa? That was somewhat important in the books but I don't remember seeing if that is a thing in the show or not. With today's culture being what it is, I could see them excising that in order to not spark any gender identity debates. I'm just curious if I missed it.
I think that's still in place based on what happened to Moraine, but I don't remember it if they make it clear.
They can't see each other's weaves in the show. Sometimes people react to see what they did with the weave, but they definitely can't see the weave of folks of the other gender. It's even a plot point related to the Dragon "reveal" that they do in the first season. I would say that the "who actually is the Dragon" thing that they tried to pull off in the first season was pretty dumb to most book readers, but did appear to be somewhat effective with non-reader friends I have who have watched the show. It gave them something to speculate about during the relatively uninteresting first book plot.
So . . .. men CAN weave but are generally DISCOURAGED from weaving? in the show . .. .we have what.. . .. (beyond the BIG BADS) . .. 3 men that could weave seen? Why didn't Perrin call in the Wolves to fight the Trollocks? Rocket River
I'm guessing for the same reason the direwolves in Game of Thrones didn't make as many appearances as in the books. CGI is expensive and animals are a nightmare to work with.
That's one way to put it. Another way is hunted down, stripped of their powers, and then killed. The whole backstory of the Wheel of Time is that the Aes Sedai released the Dark One from his prison by trying to access greater power and the Dark One tainted the male half of the one power. Males who channel inevitably go insane due to this taint. One of them, the Dragon, opposed and defeated the Dark One and locked him back in his prison, but in doing so broke the world. As such, the women of the Aes Sedai (and specifically the reds) eliminate every man who can channel. That's what happens when they are hunted to extinction.
Men are discouraged from weaving because they go mad as the male side of the power is corrupted by the dark one. Lews Therin blew up the known world when he went mad, which is why it's properly discouraged to the point of killing them or cutting them off from the source permanently which also kills them because they can't live without their drug of choice. Think all of the world's nuke's going off at once, just more destructive and causing the entirety of the world's geography to be changed. Yes, for now, as far as they've gotten in the books, only a few men can see each other's power weaves. I assume Perrin not calling the wolves is money based for special effects. In the book, for the battle of the two rivers, they were mostly hunting the trollocs in the forest. Now, if they are not called in for a certain battle from book 6, then yes, I'll be heavily disappointed.
All these fantasy series (books, TV) will be like that. For example, I'm sure someone has thought of adapting "The Sword of Shannara". But the plot is veeeeery much a re-do of LOTR. Wizard shows up in town full of rubes, "hey, there's a powerful talisman and an evil powerful mofo, let's go cross country", hey here's a Dwarf, and Elf, and Men warrior(s) to join in our quest, oops, "Quest" with a capital "Q"...... But later books move into other territory. "Elfstones of Shannara" was badass. "Wishsong of Shannara", too. Many "Shannara" books followed, so you'd have a lot of material for a TV series. But you'd have to get past the jumping-off point, which can't help but evoke memories of Frodo, Gandalf, Sam, the Ring, et al.
