Wheel of Time
20 Nov 2021So last night I watched the first three episodes of Wheel of Time.
#1 fuck you for making a pregnant woman to refrigerate her.
#2 I love pretty much everything else about it. Okay, so some of the shots were on the bumpy side and I’m pretty sure I saw at least one person look straight at the camera and stuff. A friend said it was much more like a network tv show than an HBO max, and while we were watching it Jen commented that we had been spoiled by Netflix. So, production quality wise there is some work to do but it’s the sort of work to do that is resolved with budget.
It’s not a direct translation of the text, thank goodness. It’s a strong retelling in my mind. It was made by people who read the books much in the same way I do, though with a few more layers of grim added around a bit. My imagining of it is very much fairytale medieval village and this one is probably a lot more realistic? It’s grimy, not grim-dark? Thus far at least.
There’s bits of humour. Matt and Rand and Perrin are all Matt and Rand and Perrin. There hasn’t been enough Nynaeve yet but I know she and Egwene are already so much better portrayed here than in my head. So many of those images were calcified in like… I guess probably like 1993 or 1994 Rob’s brain which was pretty uncritical and primed with mass media stereotypes and a whole backlog of science fiction and fantasy written ones.
I appreciate most of the changes to the characters’ backstories. I understand why Perrin needed different motivation and I think Matt’s roguishness makes more sense now than when he was the privileged lazy son of everyone’s favourite horserider.
I’m looking forward to reading the books again. I’ve read the first three so very many times and the first 8 quite a few. The last 6 only the once so far. I’m currently reading book 7 and I’m keeping it in line with the Everyone Hates Rand podcast which has really been helping me change the way I appreciate the series in its own high-impact way too.
Probably large parts of my interpretation was relatively far from the source material. I’m something of a pollyanna when it comes to interpreting tales.
I don’t know if I’m going to keep current with the episodes, though if there’s enough efts watching them I’ll really enjoy maybe having a little bit of conversation with them. There isn’t anyone I can have a direct nerd-out conversation with it and probably if there’s anyone who is as strongly attached to it in the way that I am but has conflicting opionions about anything I think about it feels like it would be a much worse conversation anyway.