That’s a fair criticism. One of the fundamental challenges the show has had is Amazon’s religious belief that its streaming shows shall be 8 episodes per season. There’s not enough time to do the world-building that would help fill in the gaps for folks unfamiliar with Randland.
The funny names…that’s unfortunately the nature of the genre. The showrunners can’t abandon it without losing even more of the book fans.
I think it was mentioned (or at least strongly hinted at) in the E7 after-episode discussion that they had to make some decisions about the Battle of the Two Rivers due to budget constraints. The significance of some of the things that happened will be realized later (if there is a later – still no word on whether another season will be green-lit), although the conclusion of the episode was a MAJOR deviation from the books. The after-episode discussion gives the showrunner’s rationale for that, but…
The furry man…I’m not going to try to spell the name of that species, but they could be described as “foxes”… I was surprised we got that scene, as I thought that story arc was going to be completely cut from the show.
In the books, it’s almost as confusing. However, for the show, it suffers a little bit because of how they’ve rearranged part of the story. In the books, Matt has an encounter with a different doorway arch, where he has an encounter with snake-people who answer three questions for him.
The books have a little more commentary about who those people are, etc., but the show distilled it down to part of one scene – you may remember the cold open from one of the episodes, where Elaida has just stepped out of an arch, having had questions about her future answered. She was led to believe that she’d become Amyrlin Seat, but then she is surprised when she loses the vote to Siuan.
The books also spend a bit of time in a couple of places describing the children’s game “Snakes and Foxes”, a game that cannot be won except by cheating (and thus most people quit playing it once they realize that fact), as being a hazy recollection of people in the prior age having had dealings with those folks. However, the show simply hasn’t had the time to do that sort of world-building, although the game is in S3E1 as an easter egg.
The show’s done a much better job this season of not alienating book fans…or at least giving book fans some of the scenes they needed from the books, but I can see it a fair criticism that that came at the expense of understandability for folks who haven’t read the books.
At the moment, my money is on Season 4 not happening. While I understand that the profit margin for the show has been good by streaming standards, the studios have overspent over the past few years. And with a decent chance of a global recession…
That sucks, because I was going to be VERY interested in how the show handled the Battle of Dumai’s Wells.
I need to go back and re-read the series at some point, replacing my old headcanon with the show’s portrayals of the characters. However, I’ve got a pile of books queued on my Kindle ahead of that.
(The next book of the Dresden Files is FINALLY coming in January!!!)
…but admittedly not entirely surprised.