DigificWriter

It was pointed out that the ending of Episode 8 was actually a loss for the good guys, so I don't think we should be trying to look at or analyze Amalisa's strategy in a positive light.

It ended up working to save the city, but wasn't a good strategic call.

@TheDreadReader is right. The scene with the Seanchan doesn't need or require proper context because it's designed to make general audiences go 'Okay, what does that mean?'.

Whether or not it worked as intended is apparently dependent on the mindset of the individual viewer, but the success or failure of audiences to come away from the scene asking questions doesn't negate the purpose behind including it.

@WhiteVeils Reading this makes me realize that Rafe and his team pulled out a Revenge of the Sith/The Empire Strikes Back/The Last Jedi ending, and it makes me even more excited to see what happens next.

My interpretation is that the show has moved Lews' actions in trying to contain the Dark One for good to before the outbreak of war because attempting to stop a 3000-year cycle of esvalating darkness during an otherwise peaceful period of existence leans into the idea of arrogance much more than an attempt to seal the Dark One in the midst of a war does.

The gold-plated pacifier gags add a much different connotation to the Seanchan culture of slavery and make it more unsettling and disturbing because they imply a deeper level of subservience and dehumanization than collars and physical leashes ever could.

7 hours ago, rowdie said:

?? Gold passifiers = Silver collars ??

IDK Rafe has changed so much, and for what reason????  The channeling scenes are about the only thing I like at this point.  

The look of these characters and their 'slaves' would fall under the purview of Isis Mussenden and her Costuming team, so if you don't like those decisions, blame them, not Rafe.

13 hours ago, Raal Gurniss said:

I hope I am wrong(sort of) but I truly believe season 2 will be the last…It depends if many of the fans of book feel they are being exploited and taken advantage of.

The opinions of a divided fanbase are monumentally irrelevant when it comes to determining the long-term future of this show.

Paranoid Fain definitely has the Shadar Logoth dagger.

However, Loial  isn't dead, as per Rafe.

@Blackbyrd I think you might've meant "count on one hand", but I can actually think of and offhandedly name a large number of book-to-screen adaptations that have matched or exceeded the quality of their source material:

* The Hobbit Trilogy

* The Lord of the Rings Trilogy

* The CW's Nancy Drew

* His Dark Materials

* Tina Fey's Mean Girls

* Disney's The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe

* Disney's Prince Caspian

* MGM's The Wizard of Oz

* Harry Potter

* Starz's Black Sails

* BBC's The Musketeers

5 minutes ago, Mirefox said:

So fidelity simply doesn’t matter any time someone acquired an IP and wants to adapt it as long as they claim is is “based on?”

Fidelity is not an absolute universal standard.

7 minutes ago, Mirefox said:

This is disingenuous garbage.  They chose to adapt the Wheel of Time books; they chose to call this Wheel of Time.  Of course the books upon which it is all based is the baseline.

The show is "Based on" the WoT novels, but what Rafe and his team choose to do with the source material is what creates and determines the show's baseline, and because that baseline is still being established, it cannot be fairly compared to the novels' baseline.

8 minutes ago, TheMountain said:

"The books and the show are not the same thing, translation to a visual medium bla bla bla."

 

I'm so tired of hearing this as if it's some sort of goat-kissing bloody revelation that, if only critics would understand, would allow them to see the light.

 

"YES, THAT'S IT! OMG. I LOVE THE WRITING IN THE SHOW NOW!"

3 minutes ago, Finfolfin said:

Agreed , it wasn't 'translation to a visual medium' that made them stop Rand from saving the days at Tarwins gap, or having Elyas in the show to give exposition about being a wolfbrother to Perrin instead of Steppin some useless charcter who commits suicide. Or the butchery of Mat as some sort of dark criminal.

Hysterical (and hilarious) hyperbole aside, the point I was trying to make is that the books cannot be used as a baseline for the TV series because they are not the TV series.

3 minutes ago, fra85uk said:

Yes show and books are different 

 

One is mediocre at best, with points of low never digged even by the worst productions in the history of film-making.

 

The others are simply the best modern fantasy series ever written.

Agree to disagree, especially with the bolded.

1 minute ago, DojoToad said:

The show is broke

No, it isn't.

You don't like what the show is doing; that doesn't mean that Rafe and his team have done anything wrong.

2 minutes ago, Finfolfin said:

we've read the books, we have a baseline

The show and the books are not the same thing and were never going to be the same thing.

^ You don't know what the end result of these choices will be, so you don't have any baseline by which you can declare them to be unnecessary.

4 minutes ago, JenniferL said:

Brandon is multiple NYT bestseller, has two Hugo Awards and has his own own books under adaptation. I’m sure he’ll be fine. 
 

Does anyone have a summary or transcript of this episode? I read faster than I listen. 

It would be almost impossible to transcribe The Dusty Wheel's shows because of their format.

Not trying to start a fight, but WoT's hardcore fanbase don't amount to more than a 'grain of sand on a beach' in terms of gauging how long this show may or may not run, especially when said fanbase is divided over the quality of the show.

@orbops Amazon is very happy with the show, so 8 seasons is entirely doable.

5 minutes ago, Sir_Charrid said:

I think this is a sensible approach. Venting and getting angry just makes you feel bad all day long, and it's christmas eve ?. I will admit I had hoped for a better end, I hoped rafe was heading towards something, now, I am going to stop trying to predict anything about the show based off the books. My predictions will be made with the assumption there is no book to base them on and simply taken from the things I know from the series itself. 

Rafe and his team are relying on the novels; they're just not depicting the minute story details of each novel individually or consecutively.

Just now, JenniferL said:

All I want here is a decent discussion.

Agreed.

I still think you deserve kudos for starting to get things settled down.

As a show-only fan, I'm intrigued by what they've set up and the pretty massive character and plot implications thereof, and can't wait to see what ramifications we get from the episode's two biggest Pattern-Level Events (credit Matt Hatch): Egwene reviving Nynaeve and the One Power being just out of Moiraine's reach.

I want to take a moment to give credit and kudos to @JenniferL for starting to steer the discussion somewhere that isn't just blind outrage regardless of her own personal feelings on the episode.

Even though I find the vehemence of this negativity amusing, it also says some really unflattering things about the people engaging in it, especially when said people start to imply that anyone who doesn't share the negativity - even amongst hardcore book readers - is 'the other' and that people can't possibly genuinely enjoy the series without being 'shills'.

3 hours ago, Mailman said:

For someone who brought up a meme and said that it might trigger people you seem to want to throw around the disappointed darkfriend insult repeatedly. And yes you are using it in order to try and get a rise out of people.

'Disappointed Darkfriends' isn't an insult; it's a label and a descriptor., and one that was coined by a podcast I listen to.

I also already explained that the post you quoted wasn't really a serious response to all of the outrage that Episode 8 has apparently engendered, the over-the-top intensity of which I find amusing.

I also objected to that meme because of what it implied about the subject of suicide.

1 minute ago, Mailman said:

I have to ask: Are you in some way involved in the production.

I don't like the implication, but will answer the question honestly: No, I have no affiliation with the show in any capacity. I'm simply a fan of it as an avid Fantasy reader and SFF TV watcher.

1 minute ago, Dead Warder said:

Then you would be no different then they, I'd cast that off before you drive yourself mad.

I wasn't really being serious.

I just find the levels of negative overreaction to be amusing.