little things

Arinna Katal

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Braid tugging :shifty
Just glue the braid into Nynaeve's hands NOW! Give the people what they want!!

I hope they can get the wolf communication right. I know it will be hard, maybe even impossible. But when Perrin or Elyas "feels" what the wolves are saying, instead of words, I'd love to see some unique artwork flash across the seen, images instead of words or something... images that convey a lot of meaning but in a unique artistic style.
I have also thought about this and shared your concerns! I don't really know how it's going to be possible without words--even in the books, it's lots and lots of words. Like, will they flash some images and Perrin will have to say out loud what they mean so that the viewer gets the full gist? I'm just preparing myself for the wolf communication to be unsatisfying. Then it will be fine if it's unsatisfying and a pleasant surprise if they figure out something cool. :D
 

Jocasta Braithe

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I hope they can get the wolf communication right. I know it will be hard, maybe even impossible. But when Perrin or Elyas "feels" what the wolves are saying, instead of words, I'd love to see some unique artwork flash across the seen, images instead of words or something... images that convey a lot of meaning but in a unique artistic style.

Ditto with Perrin smelling people's emotions. If he doesn't at least slip up and say "You smell... uh I mean, you look worried" I'm going to be disappointed.
 

Satara al'Caelahn

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I think the wolf thing is going to be hard to convey. That's one of those things that is so so so hard to translate from book to screen. I'm not sure what I'm more afraid of: that they'll just do words, or that they'll do images and it'll look cheesy and horrible.
 

Jocasta Braithe

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I think the best option would probably be images with voiceover, but keeping it brief. I think they could do it almost like Perrin getting a flash of insight instead of a long back and forth conversation.
 

Arinna Katal

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it'll look cheesy and horrible.
This is my number one fear about the show! I know the books aren't, like, fancy literature or anything, but they really do have gravitas. Fantasy concepts translated to screen often do NOT, however. Hopefully the showrunners, who love this source material and also know a whole heck of a lot more about filming stuff than I do, will be able to figure this out.
 

Ephrem Elpidius

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another little detail that hollywood will most likely miss is the housing details, like RJ specifically mentions wooden houses on several occasions even as early as book 1 and 2, and towards the middle books when Perrin goes back to the two rivers the homes are built in brick styling and RJ mentions various little improvements like this as part of the theme

I don't know why I think this is significant, but it just feels important to the world building for me
 

Delara Morellin

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If we don't get a little skirt smoothing and sniffing action, I'll be disappointed.

Oh and maybe given how big the show rings seem to be, a reference to a new Accepted needing healing for her hand after she got it caught on something :laugh:
 

Ephrem Elpidius

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If we don't get a little skirt smoothing and sniffing action, I'll be disappointed.

Oh and maybe given how big the show rings seem to be, a reference to a new Accepted needing healing for her hand after she got it caught on something :laugh:

speaking of that, if they make said skirt smoothing too sexual in its nature, or other sexual things just because they think the audience wants that cause of other high fantasy series like GoT I am going to be so sad... WoT is one of the few series who truly is a mixture of high epic fantasy mixed with a little sci fi and it didn't have to have sex in it to sell the books. it truly is art cause of this imo because of the plethora of entertainment that does have sex related stuff in it just to sell it, cause humans are humans...

this is partly why WoT is so powerful imo, because it never learned on that and instead took you to another world with its detailed world building
 

Aduiavas Ida

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We also need to be sure that they all fold their arms UNDER their breasts ;) Because any other way to do that just looks strange :P

I hope the actors can manage the arrogance stances that come later though. Like when Elayne has her "royal" moments and makes it look like a guard or whatever is just a servant, same with Egwene when she is captured in the Tower... That is many, many seasons away though...
Rosamund Pike seems to have that already, so I am hopeful :D

Mainly, I hope they manage to make it both look "real" and still be funny, like the early seasons of GoT :)
 

Nadezhda al'Lanahrin

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I have all the faith in Rafe Judkins and the team. Brandon Sanderson himself visited the set a couple times and said they were doing a good job. So I am going to believe that everything will come out just lovely.
 

Syera Faelron

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As we know, WoT is an extremely large and sprawling book series with lots of big things that we really hope the showrunners get right. But the books are also full of tiny details that, while not necessary to the overarching plot, add TONS of color and life to the story. So I was wondering--what small detail/plot moment/minor characters are you hoping makes it into the series?

A big one that has struck me during my pre-show re-read is that, while I KNOW that seemingly every character in fantasy TV shows has a British accent, I will be a little sad if the Seanchan don't have pronounced Texas drawls. :D

I think the reason behind the English accent or English actors is due to the medieval time period. America as its now didn't exist , the accents didn't exist. I'm curious to the first nation history during times before it got 'discovered '.
I find it irksome that geralt in the witcher 3 game has American colloquialisms shoved into his dialogue. It was a Polish setting.
That aside it makes sense the origins were European and Asian etc in WoT.
 

Keisha al'Benn

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The Cairheinen are very short....the actress playing Moiraine is rather tall and that saddens me.
I hope they do the Aiel proper justice.
 

Ephrem Elpidius

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The Cairheinen are very short....the actress playing Moiraine is rather tall and that saddens me.
I hope they do the Aiel proper justice.

In the Eye of the World book cover (and poster as I have had the cover in poster form for a decade... hehe) so I see Moiraine every night before sleep... don't judge me...

Wait, Keisha Sedai, did you just back away some...

Why won't you look at me now Keisha Sedai... did I say something...

:rofl:rofl:rofl:rofl:rofl

but in all seriousness, yes in the cover art for book 1 and the poster I have she is very short.
 

Elania al'Manir

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I think the reason behind the English accent or English actors is due to the medieval time period. America as its now didn't exist , the accents didn't exist. I'm curious to the first nation history during times before it got 'discovered '.
I find it irksome that geralt in the witcher 3 game has American colloquialisms shoved into his dialogue. It was a Polish setting.
That aside it makes sense the origins were European and Asian etc in WoT.
WoT isn't a medieval time period. It's a fantasy setting with influences from a wide range of RL historical places and times, such as Elizabethan England in the Andoran monarchy and the American Antebellum South in the Seanchan's version of slavery (and their accents). For pre-colonial North American influences, Robert Jordan acknowledged that the Aiel were partially influenced by Apache tribes.

As for the Witcher, I haven't read the books yet so I don't know what its balance between historical influences and fantasy is.
 

Syera Faelron

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WoT isn't a medieval time period. It's a fantasy setting with influences from a wide range of RL historical places and times, such as Elizabethan England in the Andoran monarchy and the American Antebellum South in the Seanchan's version of slavery (and their accents). For pre-colonial North American influences, Robert Jordan acknowledged that the Aiel were partially influenced by Apache tribes.

As for the Witcher, I haven't read the books yet so I don't know what its balance between historical influences and fantasy is.

Thanks for the detailed information, it was overlooked by myself and adds depth to the WoT world. The Apache influence would be good for the show if Rafe went into that much detail. That would be exciting
 
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I'm personally cautious about the Apache influence being adapted into the show, because if the Aiel are all Celtic gingers then that could ... not go so great in a visual medium, especially given US film/TV history where creators have dressed white people up in "Indian" clothing/cultures/etc in order to perpetuate harmful stereotypes and myths about westward expansion.

The mishmash of cultures in WoT is one of the best things about it, but I've been worried about adapting Aiel since they announced the show. Also the fact that the only slave-holding culture we see in the books is led by Tuon's family and presuming her mother looks like her ... that could be one gigantic YIKE.
 

Nadezhda al'Lanahrin

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I can definitely see them changing some aspects to make it more palatable for modern audiences.
 
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I believe there's a way to adapt it faithfully that is mindful of the potential harms adapting it badly, but I do think it'll take conscious effort. I am optimistic about our showrunners, though.

I don't think I'd change anything about the color of Tuon's skin or the way the Seanchan view marath'damane ... but I'd stay far away from comparisons to the Antebellum, slaveholding south. As far as we know, being marath'damane wasn't generational, nor was it race-based. The revelation about sul'dam comes pretty early on in the series, too, and I think the show needs to make Much More Hay out of that than even the books did. Like Tuon needs to have a reckoning with that. In my opinion, the fact that she was just able to ignore her own channeling ability is one of the few problems I have with the books, and her justifications are so incredibly thin. The fact that they ignore Stilling as an option for marath'damane-- like if you think channeling is such a huge problem, test everyone before they ever touch the Source and then immediately Still them. That's obviously better than enslaving people, and the fact that they're ignoring that because The Might of the Empire depends on their weapons is just. It's so obvious they'll justify any atrocity to hold on to their power. That needs to be at the very forefront, thematically. In my opinion.

On the Aiel-- their history and culture is amazing, but I don't think I'd do anything to emphasize connections to First Nations/Native American peoples. Some connections are obvious, like Cold Rocks Hold to Mesa Verde, but I definitely wouldn't use turquoise+silver, traditional Navajo patterns, feathers, etc. They're desert nomads, so they should look like some, but a 1-for-1 copy of "Native American stereotypes" or "Bedouin stereotypes" a) wouldn't be accurate to the source material and b) would be racist. Plus, the two biggest identifiers aren't even remotely Native American: the shoufa and the spears+buckler, come from Tuareg (north African) and Migration Period Germanic weapons.

I'm really excited to see how they'll dig into the history of the Aiel and what it means to be the car'a'carn and the fallout that happens. Adapting the crystal pillars scene could be so fun!
 
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