canyonwalker | Entries tagged with the wheel of time

Season 2 Episode 2 of Wheel of Time, "Strangers and Friends", continues with tracking multiple storylines where the main protagonists have been split up. That aspect of the story is in keeping with the books— the story often flips back and forth between multiple viewpoint characters in different places from chapter to chapter or even within a chapter— though the TV writers continue diverging from the books on who's with whom and doing what.

Here are Five Things from this episode:

1. Mat's in the Tower

Instead of being out on the hunt with Rand and Perrin, Mat's in the Tower... and it's not good for him. He's being held prisoner by Liandrin Sedai. Her motives with him are unclear at this point, though folks who've read even a few books ahead from this point know that Liandrin is ( Spoiler from later in the books )

So Liandrin is basically sitting on Mat until further instructions arrive. She's not literally sitting on him, though. She only checks on him maybe twice a day. And she follows a predictable schedule, which Mat has figured out. He uses the long gaps in her attention to try digging his way out, Shawshank Redemption style.

2. Min's in the Tower, Too

Mat's digging doesn't lead to his escape. It only leads him to another prison cell. Mat's next door neighbor is... Min Farshaw! Mat and Min know each other by this point in the books and are friends and allies. With how the TV series has switched around subplots and character threads, though, here they're strangers. (TV-Min met the other protagonists in S1E7, which was after TV-Mat had already bugged out and ditched the group.) But they find quick camaraderie through their shared imprisonment. It's like they were fated to meet regardless of what Liandrin Sedai or a team of TV writers want. Mat's a bloody ta'veren!

3. Rand's in Cairhien... with Selene. Also, "Randland"?

Rand, on his own (unlike in the books at this point), pops up in Cairhien, one of the biggest cities in Randland. ...Wait, they don't actually call it Randland in the TV series. We book fans gave it that name countless years ago because the characters in the story didn't have a name for the land where they lived. They just call it "the land" or something like that. Like, how can all these people not have a collective demonym for where they live? Like, not even an old-language version of "the land". Just the land. TV writers fixed that by having standardizing on names like The Westlands.

So anyway, Rand's in Cairhien. It's one of the biggest cities in The Westlands. He's shacking up with this mysterious chick named Selene who's kind of clingy but says really stupid things about how she always thinks of her ex when she's having sex with Rand. Seriously, she says that. I'm like, "Dude...." Rand's clearly young, horny, and desperate, because this chick's totally damaged goods and he's not even hearing it when she's saying the quiet part out loud.

Of course, book readers who've gotten through at least the end of Book 2 know that Selene is ( Spoiler from book 2 ) Only many books later did we readers see that she was also vain and deluded and an emotional dumpster fire. That part the TV writers seem to have brought to the front.

4. Rand would Kill for a Promotion... to Senior Bedpan Changer

Rand isn't just boning Selene in Cairhien. That desperate shrew is actually charging him for a room at her room house. Really, she's so desperate she should be paying him. So he works. He's got a job as an orderly at an insane asylum. Yup, here's the Dragon Reborn, changing bedpans while addled old farts shake and scream about things that aren't real.

And Rand is such a genial bedpan changer. While the other orderlies enjoy making fun of their charges when their backs are turned, Rand befriends a mentally wounded old soldier. Apparently he's learning sword forms from the guy, who attained the rank of Blademaster in the Aiel War 20 years earlier. But Rand has his eye on an even better bedpan filler to learn from....

( Spoiler from this episode )

5. The Seanchan Arrive... On Camera

The Seanchan are major players in the story. They're the people from the land far to the west. Gee, maybe that's why people in the books just called their continent "the land" instead of naming it The Westlands... because there's something west of the Westlands! Their attack on the Westlands was shown briefly in a tag ending at the end of season 1. Here their invasion is brought on-camera— by which I mean it's witnessed by main characters instead of being something that happens in the background and gets related clumsily.

( Spoiler from this episode )

This part is off script from the books— like so much of the rest of the TV series— but here it seems like it will be a real improvement rather than a "WTF are they doing?" thing. Moving more of the Seanchan invasion on-camera is an improvement. It means we viewers don't have to piece it together from various small flashbacks scattered across the next 3,000 pages.

Here are a few more thoughts about S2E1 of the Wheel of Time series streaming on Amazon Prime. The episode is entitled "A Taste of Solitude", not "The Darkfriend Social" like you might have thought from my previous blog. That's just a fun sobriquet that a friend of mine created over 30 years ago that's since become common in the fandom! Following that the bulk of the episode aligns to its name, showing how the main characters are split up and dealing with things on their own. Here are Five Things:

1. Moiraine Labors Without the One Power

In the next scene we see Moiraine at Tifan's Well, a remote villa owned by fellow Aes Sedai Verin Mathwin. She's laboring to carry water drawn from a well up the hill to the manor. She's doing this as part of her... exercises, for lack of a better term... to keep herself focused while cut off from the One Power.

Yes, Moiraine's still cut off— Ishamael did that to her in S1E8— even though it's apparently been several months now. I think the writers intend this as Moiraine being Stilled, as it was called in the books, rather than merely temporarily shielded. In the books both things can happen, though being Stilled is far more powerful and punishing. It seems the show writers do not differentiate the two.

Of course, in terms of divergence from the books, the show writers also made up Moiraine being exiled from the White Tower earlier in S1 and being out here with Verin in S2. In the books Verin was in the Tower at this point. The show writers are definitely writing their own story at this point.

As I explained in my previous blog, that's not bad per se. It is a bit disorienting to us viewers familiar with the books. But ultimately this show will have to stand on its own as good TV. I think they're making good TV here by pushing Moiraine into the background, showing what a plotter she still is, and leaving the younger folks from the Two Rivers to have to fend more for themselves. That part at least is true to the spirit of the books.

2. Novices in the Tower

The third major scene shows Egwene and Nynaeve studying as Novices in the Tower. We see the degradation of the scut work they're given (novices scrub plates and pots in the kitchen) and the harsh way the Aes Sedai frame their lessons in channeling the One Power. Each of the girls is given a glass of dirty water and told they must drink it— after passing it through a magic weave they're being taught to purify it. The harshness is "Learn this thing fast or you swallow mud," which the teacher is very direct about.

This is an enjoyably vivid way of showing these two aspects of Egwene's and Nynaeve's life in the tower compared to the page, and pages, and pages of, frankly, dull prose in the books describing it. That's often the case with visual media, though. Showrunners can show a scene that conveys in 2 minutes what 100 pages struggle to say. Oh, and Nynaeve's stubbornness and difficulty channeling are beautifully shown in a quick scene where ( Tiny spoiler )

There's still the books-vs-TV issue that Nynaeve is a novice. In the books she was admitted as Accepted right away because of her strength in the power. I'm not sure this really matters. Frankly I like it better with the two women from the Two Rivers continuing to bond as there was time for little of that character development in season 1.

3. Loial's Not Dead!

The next arc of the episode follows Perrin as the viewpoint character. He's traveling with a band of Shienaran soldiers pursuing the dastardly darkfriend Padan Fain. Fain snuck into Fal Dara (in Shienar), killed a bunch of people, and stole the Horn of Valere. (That was S1E8 in the TV series but early 2nd book.) The horn is a magical artifact that summons heroes of legend and is storied to be important in winning the looming battle against the Dark One.

The TV writers change up the plotlines here. Mat and Rand are not with Perrin here. Nor is Verin; she's off at her private ranch with Moiraine, as noted above. In the books they're on this mission together. But one person I was surprised to see here is Loial— he's not dead!

The showrunners left it vague at the end of S1 whether Loial had died when had Padan Fain stabbed him (and Uno, and others) with a cursed dagger in Fal Dara. I assumed they meant to kill off Loial because they'd obviously spent so little money on FX for portraying him as an 8 to 9 foot tall quasi-human with tufted ears and hands. I mean, it only makes sense to cheap out so badly with a low-budget Loial in S1E5 if they've rewritten him as a throw-away minor character going who only has a few brief appearances.

4. Is that Idris Elba?

Another juggle in "Who's where, and when?" between books and TV involves the Shienarans' new tracker. In the books it's a long-term minor character, Hurin. In the TV series there's mumbling between soldier extras about "some new tracker". In a big reveal we see it's Elyas Machera— an interesting minor character from book 1 who was sadly cut out of season 1 to condense the story. While he's minor in the story as a whole he's actually really important to helping develop Perrin's character, so I'm glad they worked him in here.

For those not familiar with the books— and, okay, for us fans of the books, too— part of what makes this is a big reveal is probably, "Wait, is that Idris Elba?!" Haha, no, it's actor Gary Beadle. The showrunners aren't willing to spend the kind of money it would take to cast a big-screen star like Elba, especially for a minor character. Though Beadle's makeup and costuming with glowing, golden eyes sure recall Elba's portrayal of Heimdall in various Marvel movies.

5. Ingtar Admonishes Perrin: "They had a reason"

As Perrin and the Shienarans survey a slaughter scene left behind by Padan Fain and his band of darkfriends and evil monsters, Perrin frets about how he may not be able to contain his rage when they catch the darkfriends.

The group's leader, Ingtar, cautions Perrin about the perils of revenge as a mindset. He explains that if Shienarans sought revenge for all wrongs, there'd be no Shienarans left. He notes that people who do seemingly bad things must've had some reason to do what they did, and admonishes Perrin to pause to consider what that reason might be before assuming the worst and killing them for retribution.

The first half of Ingtar's lesson is standard fare for speeches about revenge, but the second half seems a bit off. Knowing what's revealed later in the books makes it way off. ( Spoiler from later in the second book )

Just recently Hawk and I resumed watching the Wheel of Time TV series with season 2. Here are my thoughts as we watched S2E1, "A Taste of Solitude". Originally I started structuring this as Five Things but then realized it was getting way too long, with 4-5 paragraphs per Thing. Thus I'm splitting it up into a few pieces. The first one is the infamous Darkfriend Social.

The episode's cold open portrays the scene from the prologue of The Great Hunt, the second book of the series. That tracks with season 1 lining up with the first book of the series. At a mysterious location a dozen or so powerful darkfriends gather secretly to be given instructions by Ishamael, the most powerful of the Forsaken and the Dark One's right hand.

As a note, the term darkfriend comes directly from the story. It's an epithet characters across multiple cultures use to describe those who secretly serve the Dark One, the evil power trying to destroy the world. Calling this scene the “Darkfriend Social”, though, was coined by a net.friend of mine in 1993. Yeah, that's a long time ago now! I'm glad to see it's caught on pretty widely across fandom.

In portraying this scene the TV show writers once again make a change from the books I don't entirely like. They change the viewpoint character.

( Scene Details (click to open) )

This is one of those situations where the change seems good for the short term, making the TV scene emotionally powerful in the moment, but bad for the story in the long term, depriving us viewers of important foreshadowing that's essentially buried in the scene.

Recently Hawk and I started watching Season 2 of The Wheel of Time. It's streaming on Amazon Prime. As I write this we've watched the first two episodes already. I'm not going to write about them, though, but the series in general up to the start of S2.

Season 2 is not new, per se. Its 8 episodes of dropped 4-5 months ago (September and October 2023). If I'm a a bit late to the party it's because I haven't been sure I care about this party.

Waning interest in The Wheel of Time is, ironically, not a new thing. It's also fittingly not a new thing, as "There are neither beginnings nor endings to the Wheel of Time," as all WoT fans know, and the Pattern repeats itself. "What was once will soon come again." I lost interest in the books halfway through the series years ago, even after the first third of the series had been a defining part of my life for years. It's how I met my wife, among other things. But as "The Wheel of Time turns [...] legend fades to myth, and even myth is forgotten by the time the age that gave birth to it comes again."

A Long Gap

Part of the reason my interest waned in watching Season 2 is the long gap between seasons. The Season 1 finale dropped December 24, 2021. The Season 2 premier dropped over 20 months later, on September 1, 2023. "When's the next one going to come out?" is something we fans of the books agonized over years ago, particularly as the author's pace of writing and publication slowed down. That was one of the reasons I ultimately lost interest in the books halfway through.

With the streaming series there's an external reason, i.e., one that's not just about the writers: Covid shut them down. The global Coronavirus pandemic hit toward the end of production of the first season. It mucked with timetables for preproduction and production of Season 2.

Slower, Faster

Gaps between books was only part of the reason I lost interest in the written series, and it was probably only the secondary reason. The main reason was the sluggish pacing of the story. Being brief was certainly something author Robert Jordan was never accused of. Indeed, among F&SF fans who didn't like his books back in the day, "They're too slow" was basically the entire criticism. Across the first few books I found in the wordiness a lot of richness in developing the characters and the world. By the 5th book, though, it just became ponderous. By the 6th it was painful. After the 7th I found so little happening in the books that, combined with the slowing pacing of publication, I completely lost interest in the series.

Slowness is absolutely not a problem in the streaming version of Wheel of Time. As befits the dictates of the medium, the showrunners are practically racing through the story. Eight episodes of S1 roughly mirrored the first book in the series, The Eye of the World. S2 looks like it will track more or less to book 2, The Great Hunt, in its 8 episodes. Each of these are 600+ page novels so, yeah, a lot has to be condensed. And honestly that's a good thing.

Off Script from the Books. A Refreshed Perspective.

"It's too slow" isn't why I lost interest in the streaming adaptation between seasons. The fact of how widely it breaks from the books in ways big and small is. Now, the gap in my interest isn't at the level of a death sentence, like it was for me with the books years ago, or like it seems to be for some fans of the books in rage-quitting the streaming series after S1. I knew I'd watch it eventually. I just didn't care when. Finally the time came on a weekend when the weather sucks and I was bored nearly to tears.

"Books are books and TV is TV." Believe me, I understand that. Major changes have to be made in adapting a huge and sprawling (many would say too sprawling) series of novels. But as I enumerated across my many blogs from watching S1, the writers of the streaming version have diverged from the books in too many key areas. It's not just cutting out side plots and minor characters— which are generally good changes to make— but changing major plots, major characters, major motivations, and even changing the rules of how the universe works (which books author Robert Jordan was very meticulous about).

My pique about the breadth of these changes softened up a bit by watching Game of Thrones in the long gap between seasons. There, my situation with books-vs-TV familiarity was reversed. I haven't read GoT. I found the streaming series fairly enjoyable for what it was without being tripped up by what differed from the books. I did read about some of those differences in fan wikis about the show... and while some fans were evidently really stuck on the changes made, I found them to be positive changes for the most part.

I applied that perspective in hindsight to S1 of WoT. Were the changes all that bad? Most of them were not— but then again, I was tolerant of those changes from the start. A few things still rub me the wrong way, though. Mat ran off for no reason (truth: there was a problem with the actor and he had to be recast). Rand asked Moiraine to pretend he's dead and ran off. Perrin had a wife and killed her. Oh, and the whole arc of series 1/book 1 changed from "Rand learns he's a child of prophecy and struggles to start to come to grips with his destiny" to "The DrAgOn ReBoRn CoULd bE AnYbOdY!1!" with the writers actively concealing some things about Rand to spring it on viewers as a reveal in the season finale.

In the season 4 finale of Game of Thrones Tyrion Lannister makes difficult, emotionally fraught decisions about what to do to people who've wronged him. The episode was a very satisfying season ender. Only one little thing bothered me: how did Tyrion get from location A to B to C so quickly during the suspenseful part of the show? I looked up the episode notes in an online GoT FAQ to see what detail(s) I might have missed. There in the notes I found more than I expected. Way more. In a section on differences between the books and the TV series I found there was a major omission about his motivation and state of mind for what he did.

Look, I understand TV shows have to cut out things that are in the books. Hundreds of pages of exposition about travels or battles? Has to be cut down to the few most meaningful scenes. A huge cast of minor characters? Condensed to a more manageable number. Subplots that don't advance the main narrative or crucially develop the main characters? Gone.

I wrote about these kinds of variances in my episode by episode blogs on Season 1 of the Wheel of Time streaming adaptation. There I'd read the books and could spot lots of differences. Most of the changes I felt were fine. They were disorienting at first, but soon enough they made sense per the needs outlined above. There were a few changes, though, that were so big, so fundamental to the setting or the narrative or main character development, that I called foul. And this change from the books in the Game of Thrones season 4 finale is one I think might too big.

S4E10 spoilers after the cut.

( S4E10 spoilers (open to view) )

Hawaii April Travelog #30
Puakō - Fri, 15 Apr, 2022, 5:30pm

We took it easy around the resort in the morning and the afternoon today in exchange for going out later. Our first plan was to visit Puakō Beach, recommended by semi-local friend, Dave. Then we saw on the map a petroglyphs reserve and decided to visit that first. So the beach would be our second plan. Well, first plan, second act. 😅 Anyway....

The petroglyphs area was near a beach parking lot. At first we wondered, "Is this really the right place?" as all we could see facing away from the beach was The Floor Is Lava.

The Floor is Lava @ Puako Petroglyphs Park (Apr 2022)

The Floor is Lava @ Puako Petroglyphs Park (Apr 2022)

This is part of what I described as my first impression upon landing in Kona-Kailua earlier in the week. The floor is lava. Here at least it's only a small patch of lava. There are also trees around the edge of it.

A gravel path wound through the piles of lava rock. It all looked... a little too manicured. There were a few stones with etchings on them tilted up on display. An informational sign openly cast doubt on whether these were genuine artifacts or... modern reproductions. I thought about giving up on this park as being hokum— it was clearly a concession created by a high-dollar resort nearby in exchange for permission to build— but then the trail turned sharply and narrowed as it ducked into a thicket of trees.

It's like the Blight at Puako Petroglyphs Park (Apr 2022)

It's like the Blight at Puako Petroglyphs Park (Apr 2022)

When I say these trees were thick, I mean they were thick like the stunted trees of the Blight in Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time. Their trunks and branches twisted around in crazy patterns. We had to duck and dodge in many places, and even with many of the trees being scorched by fire and mostly bare, the canopy overhead was so thick we sometimes couldn't tell what color the sky was.

Suddenly the thick stand of stunted trees gave way to a volcanic clearing.

Large field of petroglyphs at Puako Petroglyphs Park (Apr 2022)

Large field of petroglyphs at Puako Petroglyphs Park (Apr 2022)

Here the lava rocks were oddly smooth and all tilted in the same direction. Petroglyphs were carved into most of the "tiles" separated by surface cracks. And they all seem oriented toward the Kohala volcano.

What do the sigils mean? The signs say we don't know. That's really sad because it's not like the Hawaiian people disappeared 800 ago. Hawaiians still live in Hawaii. And even the last Hawaiian royal, Queen Lili'uokalani, lived until 1917. Coudln't we, uh, ask Hawaiian people what these Hawaiian symbols mean? Well, we can, but that's where the sad part comes in: they don't really know, either. Through the 19th and 20th centuries foreign powers (Britain, US, and Japan) sought to control Hawaii. One form of control was to replace their education with colonial schools. Even Lili'uokalani learned in a school run by Christian missionaries who sought to suppress her cultural heritage as being primitive and ungodly. Now we're all poorer for it.

S1E8 of The Wheel of Time is the season 1 finale. As I expected sometime back it aligns with the climax of the first book in the series, The Eye of the World. The episode shares the book's title.

This episode, like the others in the series so far, omits and/or changes various plot points in Book 1 of the written series to condense it for TV. That's necessary, of course, as each of the 14 hardback books is 600+ pages and would span far more than 8 one-hour episodes if recreated location by location and line by line of dialogue. Though even at its greatly accelerated rate, with season 1 aligning to the first book, does it follow that the show will run for 14 seasons?!

Anyway... about omitting and changing plot points from the book. As I said in my commentary on S1E1, I don't object to changes per se. Many are necessary and many improve the storytelling in a visual medium. But some changes are poor. I've railed about a few of them in past blogs and won't repeat it here. There are new ones to discuss now. 😏

Five Things about this episode, spoilers protected:

1) The episode starts with a cold open from the Age of Legends.
( Read more... )

2) Rand has a troubling dream in the Blight.
( Read more... )

3) Showdown at the Eye of the World
In my preamble above I noted that some simplifications in the series weaken the narrative or are lazy storytelling, some are good. The screenwriters simplified the climactic showdown at the Eye of the World, and it's a good change. ( Read more... )

4) Lady Amalisa and the mechanics of channeling
In the previous episode we're introduced to Lady Amalisa Jagad, sister of Lord Agelmar Jagad, ruler of Fal Dara, ( Read more... )

5) Padan Fain!
( Read more... )

On the whole, despite some of these frustrations with the TV show ditching rules of magic Robert Jordan was very meticulous about devising and which made his books so enjoyable, I thought the show worked well as a finale for Season 1. A tag ending even provides a view of what's to come in the next season.

Crossposts: https://canyonwalker.livejournal.com/1042808.html

In S1E7 of The Wheel of Time, the group traverses the Ways and— much like the episode title "The Dark Along the Ways" suggests— is accosted by various terrors there. They emerge in the borderlands city of Fal Dara. There we finally meet Min, a seer who can read people's fates; see some character development with Lan (and Nynaeve); and watch as the young members of the group struggle through a crisis of faith in each other. The episode ends with a journey into The Blight to reach The Eye of the World, setting up for a season finale (IMO) that parallels the first book, The Eye of the World.

My "Five Things" structure has worked well for all the episodes so far, and there's enough in S1E7 to continue it. As this episode is full of reveals (which makes sense, as it's setting up the season finale) I'll put the whole thing behind a spoiler cut.

( Five Things about S1E7 - spoilers )

Crossposts: https://canyonwalker.livejournal.com/1030401.html

In S1E6 of The Wheel of Time, "The Flame of Tar Valon", the group fully reunites in Tar Valon, the capital of the Aes Sedai and the home of the Amyrlin Seat. We learn something of the court intrigue of the Aes Sedai, the most powerful women in the world, before the group embarks on the next leg of their journey.

By this point I thought the story would be well enough underway that I'd no longer have Five (new) Things to say about each episode. But this one surprised me with its richness. So, once again, it's a dilemma of how to select only these Five Things:

1) Siuan Sanche as a girl

The episode begins with a cold open showing Siuan Sanche, now the Amyrlin Seat (head of the Aes Sedai), as a young teen girl who's developing her first abilities channeling the One Power. As in the books she comes from a humble background as a fishmonger's daughter. This vignette is surprisingly well done and really makes vivid this aspect of Siuan Sanche— her humble roots, hard work, and need for resolute decisions from a young age.

2) In the Hall of the Tower

"False" Dragon Logain was captured in S1E4. Here's he's brought before the Amyrlin Seat for judgment... as are the Aes Sedai who captured him in a situation that.... went badly off plan. I'll leave out the spoiler-y things that are done or said in this scene and simply say that I love the set design and costuming here. The Hall of the Tower really looks like the place a queen of queens would sit. The filigree stonework really evokes the Jordan's written descriptions of impossibly detailed craft. And the costumes befit the women's position of power while looking different enough from one another to reflect their different backgrounds, tastes, and cultural traditions.

3) Court intrigue

The audience in the Hall and a few later scenes with various Aes Sedai gathering to speak privately illustrate the division within the Tower. The books introduce us to this slowly, like we're kids gradually figuring out our parents/teachers/elders/leaders aren't united in their wisdom and cooperation but are petty fools with their own personal agendas they consider more important than the common good. I think it's more effective storytelling, especially in the shorter form demanded by a streaming series (remember: the novels were 14 volumes!), to show this earlier. It certainly puts more narrative tension on Moiraine doing what she must do. She not only has to do it before the forces of the Shadow close in, but before the warring factions of Aes Sedai rip themselves apart!

4) Lan gets a night off...

"You've shrouded the bond!" Lan barks at Moiraine in her chambers. "Oh, my!" actor George Takei

"It's been 2 years," she purrs. "You need a night off...." . Whoa, I thought, is she telling Lan to get himself laid? And then... ( Oh, my! )

In 1991 The Wheel of Time was praised just for having women main characters in the story. It was groundbreaking in that respect, sadly. In 2021 it takes more than merely acknowledging women exist to win the same kudos for representation. Already we've seen strong representation of people with different skin tones and ethnicity. I like the way, now, that this screen adaptation portrays non-hetero relationships so... normally.

5) Five Four go forth

In writing about the previous episode I predicted that the group would head to the borderlands next. That would put them on pace to hit the climax of Book 1 by the end of Season 1— pretty much a necessity, pacing-wise, if they expect to wrap this up any faster than Jordan's/Sanderson's whopping 14 volumes. In the last scene of the episode the group meet outside Tar Valon at what looks like a broken stone doorway.

( Episode spoiler )
Okay, this is a departure from the books. I'm curious where the script writers are going with this!

Crossposts: https://canyonwalker.livejournal.com/1027710.html

In S1E5 of the Wheel of Time streaming series, "Blood Calls Blood", the group begins to reunite in Tar Valon. This episode continues the weirdness of things being omitted, changed, or moved out of place from the story in the books. For example, though the storyline is about 2/3 of the way through book 1 right now, the group never went to Tar Valon in book 1!

Going on that theme, here are Five Things that are missing or misplaced— and whether that's good or not, and what it likely means:

1) The Whitecloaks are really evil

In S1E5 we see the Whitecloaks again. The detachment led by Eamon Valda, the mustache-twirling bad guy introduced in S1E2, ( episode spoiler )

What's out of place here? It's not that the Children of the Light are basically evil people acting supposedly in the name of good. That's book canon, too. The streaming series just puts a much sharper edge on that by changing the facts of the situation. In the books, ( book 1 spoiler )

The book scene paints the Whitecloaks, at this stage, as unsympathetic but not outright evil. Here, they're outright evil. And the show is spending a lot of screen time to make that point. For what? I wonder. In the books the Whitecloaks are frankly just nuisances; their own bullshit limits their effectiveness. (At least up through book 7, which is where I stopped reading years ago.) Giving them so much screen time signals a promotion to major antagonists. Maybe that's their new role in the story because so many other antagonists haven't been introduced yet and/or will never be?

2) Low-budget Loial

This isn't a thing that's missing or misplaced, but I've just got to say I am disappointed by the visual portrayal of Loial. In the books, Loial, an Ogier, is almost 10 feet tall. Here he's just an actor with platform shoes and a bunch of latex on his face.

Showrunner Rafe Judkins's standard reply on things like this is that CGI is too expensive to be applied in every video frame where a character is on-screen. Yeah, I get it, CGI is expensive, but movies operating with 10-years-ago and even 20-years-ago technology— which was way more expensive for what it was able to do— managed to do it well... and often without CGI. Harry Potter movies made Hagrid look 8 feet tall mostly through costuming and camera tricks. Lord of the Rings did the same to make the Hobbits look 3 feet tall. Here we've got Loial sporting the same level of cinematic technology as 1980s Star Trek: The Next Generation with Klingons with latex on their foreheads.

3) Rand knows nothing about swords

Rand's toting around the sword he took from his father in S1E1. Except he knows nothing about it and he's never practiced using it. In the books the sword is... let's just say, a weapon with its own backstory... and Lan starts drilling Rand on how to fight with it right away. Rand becoming an expert swordsman is important because his character arc has him having to fight lots of skilled warriors 1:1 to survive. Are the writers of the streaming series just going to leave all that out? I suppose they could. But if they keep it in by suddenly going, "Oh, yeah, one day Rand wakes up and is a master of the katana, because mAgIc!1!" I'm going to be disappointed at such a cheap device.

4) More time spent on Kerene and Stepin

Several minutes of screen time in this episode extend the story arc from S1E4 of Kerene Sedai and her warder, Stepin. Here, ( episode spoiler )

Again, the question is why is this here? Why spend so much time on this? This is barely even side-plot level stuff; it's flavor text, really. It's not relevant to the central plot of the story, which the streaming series is leaving out an increasingly alarming amount of stuff relevant to.

5) Skipped Caemlyn. Next place: Fal Dara?

I mentioned above the show is diverging from the books by bringing the group to Tar Valon and the White Tower. At this point in the books— i.e., about 2/3 of the way through book 1— they reunite in Caemlyn, the capital city of Andor, not the White Tower. Caemlyn is where they meet Loial. They also meet Elayne, the crown princess of Andor, her two half-brothers Gawyn and Galad, Queen Morgase of Andor, and the queen's major general, Gareth Byrne. They are all important characters later on in the story. That's a lot of characters not to introduce! Are some of them not appearing in this series now?

Caemlyn is also the place where, in the books, Moiraine says, "We've got to hurry this thing up." It's like she knows there's only 1/3 of the book left and it's time to start building toward the climax. 😂 "To the Borderlands!" she commands. (Okay, I'm paraphrasing these quotes. 🤣)

I figure the streaming series is tracking for the season 1 finale to align with the end of book 1, "The Eye of the World". At the breakneck pace they've been going they could do that. They'll have to get going from Tar Valon soon. Will Moiraine say, "To the Borderlands!" in S1E6? Will they go to Fal Dara? Or will they skip Fal Dara in the name of sets for minor locations being too expensive to build and go straight to the Blight?

Crossposts: https://canyonwalker.livejournal.com/1024902.html

"The Dragon Reborn" is the fourth episode of the Wheel of Time streaming series. Curiously it takes the same title as the third book of the series. It's not based on book 3, though. The events here correspond roughly to the middle of the book 1, The Eye of the World. I say "roughly" because this episode focuses on something not part of the main story in the books. At the center of this episode is the story of Logain, a male channeler who has just proclaimed himself The Dragon Reborn— hence the title.

Here are Five Things:

1) Showing, not telling: Logain

In the books what happens with Logain in this episode is merely told; the main characters hear about it in bits and pieces of news passed by word of mouth from strangers they pass. Here in this episode it's shown. ( episode spoilers )

As NBVs (non-book viewers) might guess from the fact the writers chose to spend time on this story arc, Logain is important later in the story. Seeing this story told as a contemporaneous event and in the first person, rather than in bits and drips or as someone's flashbacks 3,000 pages later, really makes it vivid. I wonder if it also indicates that the writers are making Logain a bigger character than in the books— maybe folding Mazrim Taim into him?

2) Nynaeve shows her power

In another example of the power of showing rather than telling, the writers show us Nynaeve's power. In the books it's only told that Nynaeve is stronger than any living Aes Sedai. "Told", as in people tell her. She doesn't really experience doing it until a few books later. Here she ( episode spoiler )

Note for NBVs: In the mechanics of the One Power, people are born with a certain strength that's the limit of the amount of power they can handle at one time. This is different from most other settings where magic strength is something a person increases through careful study, discipline, and practice, like muscle strength. Study, discipline and practice are still critical in The Wheel of Time— discipline, especially, because if a channeler draws more power than their strength allows they injure or kill themselves— but strength is innate.

I'm curious to see how the writers portray other Aes Sedai treating Nynaeve after this. The Aes Sedai accord a lot of status within their ranks to a woman's innate strength. Despite this, in the books, they often downplay the importance of her strength when talking to her. I wonder if now that she has just put it on display that she's headed for the top of the class— in effect shown them rather than told them— they'll accord her more respect.

3) The Tuatha'an are really well done

An area where streaming shows can excel is in their visuals. With a reported budget of $10 million per episode WoT has some pretty stunning visuals. The depiction of the Tuatha'an, the Traveling People, aka The Tinkers, is spot on. The costume and set design really nail the book descriptions of brightly colored clothing and painted wagons. They're a visual feast. And the clothes are practical. Costume design is something I'd commend the show for across the board. The characters all look like they're people who know how to dress for working and traveling outdoors in the late winter and early spring.

Even beyond the visuals the Tuatha'an are well done. They really sell their nonviolent philosophy. Often nonviolent groups in movies and TV are portrayed unsympathetically, as foolish idealists or hypocritical liars. Perrin does challenge their philosophy— his "Do I choose the Hammer or the Axe?" conundrum is one of the aspects of his character development the show is actually doing well— but the Tuatha'an really live their philosophy and understand its downsides as well.

4) Rand and Mat: drastically condensed, but the basic theme tracks

The plot arc of Rand and Mat traveling across the kingdom, alone and with Thom, is drastically condensed from the books. In the books they visit numerous towns, stay at numerous inns (often working to pay their room and board), bunk in numerous barns, and hitch numerous rides. Here they basically do it twice. The scene with the darkfriend in S1E3 was a good amalgamation of several scenes. There's another good one here with ( episode spoilers ) This scene didn't happen in the books but it's another good amalgamation of how Rand and Mat navigate an unfamiliar world and learn danger can lurk in any shadow.

5) Why Kerene and Stepin?

When Moiraine, Lan, and Nynaeve find shelter with an encampment of traveling Aes Sedai we are introduced to several of the Aes Sedai and their warders by name. Among them are Green Ajah leader Kerene and her Warder, Stepin. As they had multiple talking scenes in the episode I was wracking my brain trying to remember them from the books I last read 25 years ago. I never read all the books so I wondered if maybe they were characters that came later whom the screenwriters have pulled forward. Then I checked a WoT fandom wiki and found they aren't in any of the main 14 books in the series. They're only introduced in a companion book, and it doesn't place them at this scene. It seems their only role here was to help tell the story about ( episode spoiler ). Enh. Was it really valuable to spend so much precious screen time on that, given all the character development in the main characters they're leaving out?

Crossposts: https://canyonwalker.livejournal.com/1024477.html

In WoT S1E3, "A Place of Safety", the main characters are split into three small groups following their escape from a deadly horror in the previous episode. They try to reunite while continuing their mission. Along the way they face new dangers as the reach of the Shadow grows.

In watching this episode I was struck many times by ways the streaming series diverges from the books. As I've noted before, different doesn't mean bad. I judge each change for how it helps or hurts characterization and the story. Some changes work pretty well! Here are Five Things about changes in S1E3:

1) I knew it! The sacred bath-cave appears again 🤣

I've expressed surprise at the sacred bath-cave of Emond's Field in S1E1. It's something totally out of left field that's not in the books. I knew that given the directors spent time and money creating it for one scene— showrunner Rafe Judkins has stressed in public conversations that there's a tight economy on how many locations can be portrayed, and lots of things from the books must be cut— that if they built it once they'd certainly use it again. And they do.

( Spoilers from here on )

Crossposts: https://canyonwalker.livejournal.com/1024008.html

I recently watched S1E2 of the streaming series The Wheel of Time, entitled Shadow's Waiting. In this episode the "kids" from Emond's Field (in the TV adaption they're aged-up to 20 so it feels wrong to call them kids like in the books) continue fleeing their home flight with Moiraine and Lan as Trollocs and Myrddraal chase them. They face additional peril from Whitecloaks and the ancient evil of Shadar Logoth.

I've structured this blog as Five Things, but I'm going to try a different approach to spoilers here. I'll split out spoiler-y parts from things that aren't really spoiler-ish. You can see the whole blog without spoiler cuts by clicking the title.

1) Holy Shit, Whitecloaks are Evil

The episode begins with a cold open in a Whitecloak camp. ( Spoilers - and torture warning )

2) Victory at a price; Why Aes Sedai are distrusted— again!

In S1E1 I wrote about a scene that uses the rare "victory at a price" theme and also illustrates why Aes Sedai are distrusted. Another such scene comes in this episode, at Taren's Ferry. ( Spoiler )

3) What the Dark One doesn't know— and we're not supposed to know, either.

( Spoiler: Why nightmares matter )

4) "Sing of Manetheren" = All the feels

During their voyage across the steppes below the Mountains of Mist the Emond's Fielders sing an old song, "Sing of Manetheren". The lyrics are melancholy and sparse (link to Wheel of Time Fandom Wiki), and the villagers don't really know what it's about. Moiraine tells them the true-life history of their forebears, and it's an enormously sad story.

5) Shadar Logoth: Wondrous and Creepy. Things Left Out.

Shadar Logoth is an ancient city whose architectural beauty is surpassed only by the creepiness of its total lack of life. The shows skips over lots of scenes and places in the books to get the gang here, but once they do... wow, the production team clearly spent some budget on this place. It's a visual feast, and the foreboding tone is spot-on. They still cut it short for time, though, and in doing so raise some concern about how they'll portray the lasting effects of what happens here. In particular, ( spoilers from the show and the books )

Worse to me than whether this nit was left out is a huge missed opportunity I see here. Showrunner Rafe Judkins has said he's telling "the story of the whole series", not a linear, scene-by-scene story of the books. What's the missed opportunity? Show Padan Fain.

( Spoiler about Padan Fain from a few books ahead )

Crossposts: https://canyonwalker.livejournal.com/1023575.html

One of the themes of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time series is that the Pattern repeats. Ages come and pass but they also come around again. I felt the Wheel spinning back around last night.

Lemme see, how do I put this in terms fans of WoT would understand....

Wheel of Time chapter icon

In an Age called The 90s by some, an Age long past, an Age yet to come, I stayed up too late on worknights when new WoT books dropped. I enjoyed the books so much that I binge-read them. I'd stay up until around 3:30am a few nights in a row, devouring each new novel quickly. Staying up too late wasn't the beginning, and it certainly wasn't the end— because back then it seemed like this dang series might never end. But it was a beginning.

Those late nights have spun back 'round again. Last night I watched Eps. 2-3; I'll write about them soon. But after I watched those episodes and before I starting writing I got into surfing online through various fan sites. I read page after page on a WoT wiki then found a collection of Insta/Twitter/Reddit AMAs with showrunner Rafe Judkins and read The. Whole. Damn. Thing.

I didn't close my computer until 2:30am and then didn't fall asleep until 3. There's no rest for the wicked, though. My morning alarm was still 6:45am, and I had to be in the saddle to work technical project at 8am sharp. Oww, that hurt. But it was worth it. The old blood runs deep.

Update: What did I learn from that late-night surfing? Some of the discussion I read address issues in S1E1 I've already blogged about. See my new comments about "aging up" the characters (from S1E1: Five Non-Spoiler Things) and whether the Dragon Reborn could be a woman (from S1E1: Five Spoiler-y Things). I'll discuss other insights when I blog about subsequent episodes.

Crossposts: https://canyonwalker.livejournal.com/1023152.html

Yes, I have a lot of thoughts about the premier of the Wheel of Time streaming series. After starting with Five Non-Spoiler-y Things about S1E1 I then shared Five SPOILER-y Things. Now here are Five MORE Things!

( S1E1: Five MORE Things [Spoilers] )

Crossposts: https://canyonwalker.livejournal.com/1022734.html

Last night I blogged 5 Non-Spoiler-y Things about Leavetakings, the first episode of the Wheel of Time streaming series. Here, as a followup, are my spoiler-y thoughts about the episode.

When I first assembled the list of thoughts in order of appearance in the episode I had well over 20 things. I've stitched many of them together into related threads and gotten it down to just ten. 😂 Because I like the structure of Five Things I'll post them as Five Things, twice. Here are my first Five (spoiler-y) Things about Leavetakings:

( Five SPOILER-y Things about S1E1 )

Crossposts: https://canyonwalker.livejournal.com/1022480.html

I've finally watched the first episode of The Wheel of Time, the new Amazon Prime streaming series that debuted a week and a half ago.Yeah, I'm a little late to the party. It's been tough to avoid everyone else's blogs and discussions about it so it wouldn't get spoiled for me. But now I've watched S1E1, "Leavetakings" and I have... So. Many. Thoughts.

To put some organization around these thoughts I'm going to break up my writings about the first episode into two blogs. This first one will be non-spoiler-y stuff. And I'm going to structure it as Five Things. So, here are Five Non-Spoiler-y Things about Leavetakings:

1) OMG, where is this filmed? The landscapes are amazing! [Hawk searches web from sofa in front of TV] Uh, Czech Republic? Okay, I would've guessed China with the stone spire mountains. Well, Czech Republic just moved up my list of places I must visit. And wherever it is, this is a far more stark landscape than I ever pictured for the Two Rivers based on Robert Jordan's books. I always envisioned the mountains beyond the Two Rivers as being gentle, worn ridges like the Appalachians, with the Two Rivers itself being sort of piedmont (midlands) country, with lowlands on the other side. ...Not unlike the geographical regions of Robert Jordan's home state of South Carolina, BTW.

2) The kids are 20? So the main young characters, Rand, Matt, Perrin, and Egwene, are all 20. The show is clear about that. I'm not sure that the books ever put a number to their ages— and I'm not going to go back and read The Eye of the World for like, the seventh time in 30 years— but I always interpreted Matt, Rand, and Perrin as being 16-17 based on Jordan's descriptions, with Egwene being younger but precocious at 14-15.

3) A very diverse cast. The casting is very diverse. Maybe half the characters are portrayed by White European/American actors and actresses. Perrin, Nynaeve, and Padan Fain are at least partly of African descent. Egwene is Indian. Lan is Korean. On the one hand I really like the diversity. It shows that the series creators really looked for talent in different places from the norm for the industry. On the other hand, from my perspective as a storytelling creator, it seems a little unrealistic that with the Two Rivers being an insular area for such a long time— and the show does state that on-camera— it has such an ethnic diversity among its locals. Outlanders looking very different rather than just White European-Americans wearing different styles of clothes? Heck yeah! But not people from an insular, back-woods town who've been intermarrying for generations.

4) OMG, am I going to need to take notes? More than once during the episode I thought to myself, "How am I ever going to remember all this stuff for my blog?" There is so much stuff to talk about. For this non-spoiler-y blog I only have to pick 5 from 6-7; for my next blog I might have 20— if I can remember them all! I really don't want to my enjoyment of watching the series into an obsessive exercise of note taking like I'm studying for some class. I'm thrilled to revive my love of the books from 30 years ago; I will not be thrilled to feel like I'm restarting university or graduate school 25 years after I purposefully finished with them.

And finally....

5) On the show changing things from the books.... Yes, the show changes things from the books. I expected that— and to a broad degree I accept it.

Good screen adaptations are always different. Partly it's for brevity, partly it's because the visual medium allows certain things to be shown so much better than told; and partly it's because screenplay creators can choose to take certain liberties with the written source. It's their artistic license. Diverse casting is an example of a liberty the latter. But where this episode diverges from the storyline of the books—and I'm merely going to state that it does without divulging spoilers about what— I'm left trying to puzzle out what the impact of those changes will be.

Some differences are likely inconsequential. I noted a few that seem to be in that category. (I'll address some in a subsequent blog with spoilers.) But others struck me like, "Wait, WHAT?"— portending significant changes to the plot ahead.

To be clear, I'm not opposed to these changes per se. I'm not a purist who demands slavish devotion to the source books. I'm fascinated by the potential the changes hold and enjoying trying to figure out where they'll lead.

---- Please do not include spoilers for the streaming series in comments on this blog entry ----

Crossposts: https://canyonwalker.livejournal.com/1022300.html

The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again.

Just as the story of the Wheel of Time spans a long time so, too, does my involvement with it. I wrote recently how the release of the Wheel of Time series on Amazon Prime reminded me how it has now been 30 years since I started reading the books.

Early on I was an avid follower of the series. I devoured the books as soon as they came out. I was thrilled to find an online discussion group in 1993. I participated actively in that group and its successor for several years, and to this day I maintain friendships formed there. I literally met my wife there. We've been together 27 years now!

I even created a web page about Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time in 1994. Yes, 1994. Yes, that predates Wikipedia by more than 6 years! I don't have a screenshot of what it looked like back then, but the page is still online today... and honestly hasn't changed much since about 2001.

Bill's Repository of Robert Jordan Fandom (Nov 2021)

Pictured: a screenshot of My Robert Jordan fandom webpage, little changed in 20 years

"Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again."

That line from the prologue of every volume of the series describes my own relationship with the series. As big a fan as I was of the story in the mid/late 1990s I lost interest not long after.

I always thought The Shadow Rising (1992), the 4th volume of the series, was the best book. Jordan broadened the canvas of the story considerably and tied together the actions of the present with the legends of the distant past in a compelling way. The 5th book, The Fires of Heaven (1993), wasn't as good, but after as much of a magnum opus as I felt Shadow Rising was I was still eager to continue the series.

The problem really started with the sixth book, The Lord of Chaos (1994). It moved slowly, and it seemed like nothing important or interesting happened. My disappointment grew with the seventh book, A Crown of Swords (1996), which was more of the same. Then, with a nearly 2 year wait until the next book, which had no promise of being any better, I gave up. I stopped caring about the story and the characters. I never read The Path of Daggers (1998) or any subsequent books, though I did remain active in the newsgroup despite that for a few more years for the friendships I had there.

Ah, but the Wheel turns 'round again. Here in 2021, 7 years after the series was completed— with a whopping 14 books— a streaming TV series launches. And with it my interest in the Wheel of Time is reborn. It is not the beginning, for there are neither beginnings nor endings to the Wheel of Time, but it is a beginning.

Crossposts: https://canyonwalker.livejournal.com/1021791.html

The debut on Amazon Prime of a Wheel of Time streaming series got me thinking again about how my own story interweaves with the series of books. Or rather, the story of the series of books. As I noted in another blog a week ago, I started reading WoT 30 years ago. I was a big fan at first and for several years after. I made many friends through our shared fandom. Then I lost interest in the series well before its completion, but kept some of the friends. Here's part of that story. It's not the whole story, as that would imply a beginning and an ending— and all WoT fans know that there are neither beginnings nor endings to the Wheel of Time. Also, it's a long story. So here's part of it.

New Newsgroup Appears!

Back in 1993 I was active on a few Usenet News discussion groups. Usenet News was a form of social media that predated the world wide web and all the tools that evolved atop it that you might be familiar with today. Usenet was a text based system, vaguely similar to BBSes in an earlier era, but with messages transmitted between servers on the Internet in peer-to-peer fashion.

Usenet News was divided into channels called groups. Historically, it had started about 10 years earlier with just a handful of groups. It grew fast, though, being the form of social media on the Internet. In 1993 there were anywhere between 2,000 and about 10,000 groups depending on how you counted them.

With even 2,000 groups at the conservative end of the range— and I saw about 3,500 on my server— I couldn't be on top of them all. But I did notice new groups as they were created; there were a few a week. One of those weeks I saw alt.fan.robert-jordan appear. "Great!" I thought. "I love Robert Jordan's books, and here's a new group that's discussing them."

Discussions Online; Hatred Online

It turned out the alt.fan group was a bit of a bum steer— but one that led me quickly to the right place.

The alt.fan group was a bum steer because it was created by someone who actually disliked Robert Jordan and wanted to use it to get rid of WoT fans. I learned that quickly from a person who posted on the alt.fan group that the real action was on rec.arts.sf.written (rasfw), a group for discussion of all authors/books within the category of fantasy & science fiction.

WoT discussions on rasfw were vibrant. We discussed plot points, character development, new bits of the world and its cultures and history revealed, what we liked overall about the series and how those opinions evolved with new info added, etc.

With the release of the 5th book, The Fires of Heaven in Oct 1993, WoT discussions became especially vibrant. The series had become a major bestseller so the publisher coordinated its on-sale date to hit the top spot. That meant lots of us bought it on the same day, or within the range of a day or two. Then we binge-read it, staying up late at night for a few days to finish a 600+ page hardback novel. The upshot of all this was that WoT discussions became a huge portion of the overall discussion volume on rasfw.

A Group of our Own: rasfwrj

The struggle on rasfw, between WoT fans and everyone else, was real. We WoT fans were a lively bunch and had a lot to talk about. People who chose not to read WoT were resentful— yes, resentful— that "we" were generating so much traffic on "their" newsgroup. There wasn't a way to convince the haters they were wrong and should tolerate discussions that were clearly within the charter of the group. Haters were just going to hate. So we left. But we did it right.

The reason the alt.fan group didn't work, aside from it being created in scorn, was that it was created in a section of the Usenet News hierarchy that didn't have rules and thus didn't have broad distribution. Remember what I wrote above about there being between 2,000 and 10,000 groups depending on how you counted? It was in the portion that not everybody counted.

It's often said, "Academic politics are so bitter precisely because the stakes are so small." Welcome to Usenet, the next level down.

Being a computer-savvy and Internet-savvy person I learned the ins and outs of Usenet News. That meant learning both the technical protocols that drove it as well as the governance protocols that its volunteer caretakers held sacrosanct. And yes, they were very sacrosanct. Are you familiar with the observation— attributed to a variety of people including Henry Kissinger— "Academic politics are so bitter precisely because the stakes are so small"? Usenet was, in that sense, the next level down.

So I followed the rules. I wrote a proposal. I posted in it in the correct place. I conducted a straw poll. I invited discussion and incorporated the best feedback into a formal request, which I also posted in the correct place. Then there was a one-week voting period. Because I'd crossed my Is and dotted my Ts, and built a base of support, the motion passed. Our new newsgroup was approved & created! rec.arts.sf.written.robert-jordan was born.

"Rec.arts.sf.written.robert-jordan," you might be thinking, "What a mouthful!" Or, less politely, what a ridiculous name. I thought it was a ridiculous name, too. But it was the one I could build enough support behind. You take what you get. 🤷‍♂️ Then you make it yours.

Update: Think this is old? How about a web page from 1994! Keep reading in this series.

Crossposts: https://canyonwalker.livejournal.com/1020213.html

In my previous blog I wrote about a new streaming series released on Amazon Prime, The Wheel of Time. The arrival of this TV program takes me back 30 years; that's how long ago I read the first book of the series by Robert Jordan.

The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and go, Jordan wrote in the foreword to each book. Well, the 30 years of the turning of this wheel have intertwined a lot with my life. It would come to define years of my life and even my family. Here's how it started.

Thirty Years Ago

In a year called 1991 by some, a year long past, a year yet to come, I read the first book of the series, The Eye of the World. Cover of The Eye of the World (1990)

1991 is not when the story began; for the book was published in 1990. It was not the beginning but it was a beginning. 1991 is when my story began.

I read The Eye of the World that summer, a memorable time in life. I was a university student staying at school through the summer to take my next semester's worth of classes early as part of the Engineering Co-op program. When the normal school semester began in September I'd be off to work as a junior engineer at an industry job.

But that summer I was largely alone. Nearly all my friends had gone home. I was sub-letting a room in a strange place. I literally stepped over an unconscious person in front of my door once and sometimes walked past piles of garbage so old there were maggots on them. These were inside the building. I didn't have a lot of money to spend on entertainment— I think I went to a movie once that summer— and I didn't mix well with the other people in my building so I read a lot of books.

I absolutely loved The Eye of the World. It's a swords-and-sorcery story drawing inspiration from J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. Five young people— 4 are portrayed as teens and one as likely a 20-something— are escorted from their village by a powerful sorceress (Moiraine, an Aes Sedai), her Samurai like guard (Lan, a Warder), and a traveling minstrel (Thom, a gleeman) in search of fulfilling a prophecy about stopping the spread of evil across their land.

A Series that Went Long

One advantage of starting the series 18 months after the first book was published is that I was able to read its sequel, The Great Hunt, right away. Cover of Robert Jordan's The Great Hunt

It, too, was published in 1990, so it was there for me in summer '91. For the third book, The Dragon Reborn, I'd have to wait until later that year. Oh, the yearning!

That yearning for the next novel in the series would play out many times. Series creator Robert Jordan said in interviews back in the early 1990s that he'd conceived the story as being told in a trilogy but quickly realized as he wrote the first book that it would stretch to 4 volumes. Then he realized it would be 5. Then 6. Then.... Well, the series finally completed in 2013 with 14 volumes.

The series even outlived the author; Jordan died in 2007, not having finished the series! The final 3 novels were completed by Brandon Sanderson from partial manuscripts Jordan left behind.

Indeed, the series' length was the main criticism against it. It was long not just because the story was long but because Jordan wrote in a lengthy style. To some the verbose descriptions of characters and settings were extraneous detail. "Reading Robert Jordan is like drinking a gallon of gravy," one online critic quipped. To others of us, though, the depth of detail was part of what made the series so enjoyable. We could picture the fantastic cities of his realm, and the characters seemed so real and complete we could imagine them jumping off the page.

Next in this series: Usenet Newsgroups in 1993