WoTs Up?

adaptation: perfect. i dont care what anyone says, all the changes in the adaptation were logical and pragmatic writing choices that either beefed up the emotional intensity and weight of the storytelling or streamlined material that would not have been easily adaptable and could have been repurposed somewhere else. in order to understand what makes an adaptation good you need to recognize that it's its own separate craft and that part of the product we're admiring here is not the ability just build a portrait of the original that is complete and exact in its detail (thats so fucking boring!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Literally tell me the last time you loved an adaptation that was the EXACT same as the thing it was adapting with nothing added or removed or extrapolated or emphasized or transformed answer quickly. People always think they want an exact adaptation but like NO they dont, it would be unwatchable because it WASNT WRITTEN FOR THE SCREEN.) but rather one that works, that brings the audience along where it goes, that invites you to follow the action closely and rewards your attention the more you do. i really find it frustrating when people insist they must have more of the same with adaptations. The point of an adaptation is to meet the text where it is and then bring it someplace different. great adaptations are creatively infused with a kind of freshness that comes from deep attention to the text that allows the adapter to confidently transform it where necessary while preserving and strengthening the fulcrum points of the narrative. wheel of time tv show was different from the books on purpose and very carefully. many details of the adaptation prove how closely the writing team knew the books. they knew exactly what they were changing and why. to be brutally honest i think a lot of people in nerd culture ie wheel of time book fandom really enjoy feeling smart and a lot of viewers thus default to assuming all deviations from canon are a mistake that they then get to "correct." it's annoying.

acting: sooooooooooog oooood soo good oh my god. Not so much that every person on screen feels like a seasoned expert in the craft but that they all embody their characters with such emotional honesty and such a perfect energy for the role – including the two different Mats, even though their takes on the character feel so distinct from each other, they both feel so real. a lot of pretty genius casting choices in this show actually because if you start listing off the more familiar names you'll immediately know why they were perfect for the role they were in. every single draft pick i can think of off the top of my head was absolutely inspired. that long suffering best friend from the dumbest storyline in love actually as one of the most cold blooded villains ive ever seen on tv? bro.

score: so good like need we even discuss it... so many iconic tracks... everyone out here learning the old tongue and singing about boobs...

sound design: flawless im sorry theres no other word

visual effects: some of the best ive seen in modern tv, seriously so beautiful

sets/practical effects/stunts: also really really good,

cinematography: get in close so i can see their beautiful crying faces, and lets throw some shiveringly beautiful eastern european vistas in there as well,

horses: lot of honse,

started making it, had a breakdown, bon appétit.

Best Outfit - Round 2 Match 12

I’ve been hoarding text posts in a pinterest board for months. Time to release them into the world

because as far as we know, the only constraints were that she couldn’t tell anyone where she going and couldn’t return to andor, so if she just. never told galad where they were going and just took him with her. technically, it would be within the bounds of gitara’s fortelling.

galad as we know him would take to be being raised to follow ji’e’toh like a fish to water. one of the main things elayne has to say about him is that his honour and drive to do the right thing is almost always at the forefront of his mind, even at the expense of himself and others. it would genuinely be perfect for him. he may not have the look of the aiel but he would certainly have the conviction of one.

plus, being able to see him and rand develop a real brotherly relationship while they are both with the aiel would make his fight against demandred in tarmon gai’don — He is not here, but his brother is! — even more compelling. the siblings he didn’t grow up with need him, and he will be loyal to them to the end because not only is that how he was raised but, aeil or damodred or trakand, that is simply who he is.

furthermore a galad who didn’t have to suffer through taringail for longer than he absolutely had to would probably have a healthier childhood. janduin would have been able to have a pseudo/second?-son he would have adored. (though i doubt tigraine would have been able to directly raise galad after becoming a maiden, she would have still been in his life. he wasn’t born when she was a maiden so there would probably be some arguing but a compromise could be made i think)

post-rhuidean reveal galad would have jumped at the idea of a free first-brother and two free second-siblings. and maybe a even near-brother in mat, who would be a little freaked out but honestly has bigger problems at the minute so kind of just goes with it. galad and aviendha would have been bickering about the best ways to teach rand about aiel culture and poor rand would just be stuck in the middle of it. galad having a little sulk about the winespring brother’s shelter and not being able to go be with his baby first-brother.

Aviendha, who is (to the audience; he’s convinced she hates him, for maximum tension and Jordan Oppositional Sexism Moments™️) very clearly in love with Rand and one of the three women he’s destined to marry according to Min, has been forced into sleeping in the same room as Rand for Plot Reasons

She decides to wash up in the room they’re unwillingly sharing (this should not be a problem for her, since she’s Aiel and Aiel are very comfortable being naked around people of other sexes, but this is conveniently forgotten for the scene)

Rand comes back early and finds her naked. She is horrifically flustered and embarrassed by this, yelling that she has to get away, and in her desperation makes a Traveling gate. Traveling is a completely lost talent that no Aes Sedai has been able to use since the Breaking of the World (even Rand, the fucking Dragon Reborn, can’t quite figure out how to Travel, though he can do something kind of close). She’s so freaked out she just does it by instinct though and she runs through. Naked

Her Traveling gate has conveniently opened into the middle of a blizzard in northern Seanchan. Seanchan is a massive fucking ocean away from where they are in inland Cairhien, and is very conveniently the worst possible nation in the world to Travel to, since they either kill or magically enslave anyone who can channel

Despite suddenly finding herself naked in a blizzard half a world away, she’s just so embarrassed that she keeps running away from the gate and Rand when he comes to get her out of the fucking blizzard. She then immediately stumbles onto a frozen lake and falls in

Rand must now pull her out of the frozen lake and warm her up. The gate is too far away by now for them to survive getting back to, naturally, so they have to wait out the storm. Rand uses the Power to create a super-strong igloo and heat the air, but oh no! She’s not warming up fast enough. The only choice is for him to get naked and cuddle with her, using body heat to warm her up (the only choice, because conveniently Rand does not know how to Heal)

This works incredibly well, and very fast. Aviendha wakes up completely fine (and apparently quite energized), with no frostbite or lost extremities or anything, despite running a mile in a blizzard and falling straight into a frozen lake, and upon waking up naked cuddling with Rand, can no longer run from her feelings for him

They have sex

On top of all that, there's tons of well written smut of many varieties. Queer, straight, kinky, there was only one bed, there was no bed but they were horny. This author writes ships that don't even have ship names. I'm so here for all of it. There's interesting worldbuilding. It's a crossover with an RP (Exalted) I've never heard of before and the author skillfully intertwines it with WoT canon. I'm obsessed. I binged it all and wistfully check for updates. Go check it out!

I see decently written interesting female characters, only for them to get nothing to do in the plot. I see the tiniest crumbs of queer representation, and people eat it up and call it a meal

we got one big mainstream action-adventure show where women got to be fully developed 3-dimensional characters existing outside heteronormativity while also being relevant and even central to the plot... and they fucking cancelled it