So, I watched the first episode of Wheel of Time...

... and I'm just going to say this: someone needs to be high-fived in the face with a chair.

 

I have a funny relationship with the Wheel of Time series, in that while I have yet to read it in its entirety, the first few books will always have a special place in my heart on account of them being a pivotal part of what drew me to the fantasy genre. My brother used to read the Swedish translations back in the late 90s, and told me about the story quite enthusiastically, so naturally I read what books he had too. In my old age I've read the... first five, I think, in English. Anyway, I've probably read the first book about five times or so.

One thing I've been saying for years now is that I am wary about live-action adaptions of written works, because I don't like it when things are changed. Perhaps I should have said changed needlessly, because I get that things have to be condensed and omitted due to the time constraints inherent to the medium, but it's all about how that is done. For example, cutting Tom Bombadil out of the Fellowship of the Ring made enormous sense, since his inclusion would just have proved a distraction from what was already a three-hour movie. No, what I find grating is when changes are made that deviate from the essence of the original. The Lucifer Netflix series is a good example, where I simply found the lead actor too damn glib. Yes, a certain glibness was always part of Lucifer's character, but he coupled that with a sense of gravitas, and what's-his-name didn't do it for me.

The first episode of The Wheel of Time felt like it was rushing through things at a maddening pace. Dialogues and relationships between the characters felt disjointed, shallow and devoid of context - which made the drawn-out fighting scenes seem even worse, since they took valuable time away from the character development and explanation of the lore they should have banked on instead. Making it possible for the Dragon Reborn to be a woman changes something essential to the story, which is the sense of foreboding inherent in a powerful male channeler inevitably going insane, which everyone knows and responds to in different ways. I didn't really get the feel, either, that the Bel Tine of that particular year was special in any way, which you get in the book. You know, the spring that didn't really come and so on - I always imagined Emond's Field to be grey, overcast and cold (something about the filters used just made it seem too warm to me). Rand doesn't see the Myrddraal on his way to Emond's Field, Perrin has a wife, and, gah... I could keep going.

EDIT: And yeah, the excessive, blatant wokeness. There, I said it.

Just didn't do it for me, and I'm a bit sad about it.

 

Would you be okay with a character called Map who wears a cap?

 

Mascot wearing an Ascot.