Ita. Rosamund pike’s acting seems wooden. Not that I’m a critic, but that sticks out to me.
Pike is one of very few actors that I will actively avoid films/shows from. She sets my teeth on edge, not really sure why, but I have seen enough of her work that I have decided to skip the rest unless there is a compelling reason.
Spoilered as well:
Yeah this threw me at first as well. But after reading other comments, it is a much ‘quicker’ way of explaining may of his actions later on. It would have taken a lot of screen time to develop his feelings towards the rest of his family as told via the book and properly convey how shocking it was that they were killed. My wife is watching with me having not read the books, and she openly gasped when it happened, so they achieved the desired effect. For my own take (that I haven’t seen anywhere else at least), the self-harm scars on his wife’s arms hint at an enormous emotional toll on Perrin already, so it really does crutch him with guilt and overprotection.
Future plotline spoiler:
It still presents a problem with how quickly he meets Faile and how that storyline progresses. It is a quick turnaround given what’s just happened.
Point of fact for those watching who haven’t read the books. I don’t think this is a spoiler, but just in case:
The magic is sometimes visible, and sometimes not visible on screen. Only those who can ‘channel’ can actually see others’ channeling. So if it looks like something magical is happening, but there’s no fancy swirly stuff, that’s why. It happened a couple times in the first 3 episodes but they haven’t alluded to it yet, which might be confusing. I don’t remember when this gets explained in the books, but given the way they’re written, probably at least 8 times by now.
Remember that in the books’ chronology, I believe there’s at least couple of years (minus a few months of perceived time due to events in the second book) between the departure from the Two Rivers and meeting Faile.
Finished the first three episodes. The pacing was fast which was good because I didn’t feel like much progress was made. Of course, I had the same feeling for several of the books.
It is probably good I don’t remember the books because what I do remember there is some chronology differences, such as Perrin making his connection with wolves and mat picking up the evil dagger.
Yeah, there are plenty of differences. I want to watch them a 2nd time before Friday. I’ve read more stuff online and watched some deep dive videos, so I want to rewatch and see what I missed my first time through. My wife has read the entire series recently, and she didn’t love all the changes. I didn’t mind them - I went in expecting lots to be different.
I need to do some more deep diving as well. There’s plenty of stuff where I can point at it and say it’s not quite right, but I don’t remember all the specifics. I haven’t been completely thrown by anything except Perrin’s wife. I am still quite confused about where the heck are some of the major characters??? They’ve completely skipped over at least 3 so far. Thom did get introduced late, so maybe they’ll show up in different places.
Explanation I've seen for Perrin
Him killing his wife (apparently the term is “fridging”) will help explain his internal struggles around self control, protectiveness over Faile, and hatred of the axe.
Curious what major characters you were expecting that you didn’t see in the first 3 episodes? Thom was the only one I noticed, but like you said, he comes in later.
Also, I’m tired of spoilering everything. Should I just add “Spoilers” to the thread title, or is someone here who hasn’t seen all 3 episodes already?
Add “spoilers” to the title and be done with it, IMO
Min - massive character; and in fact the entire initial trip to Baerlon has been cut
Elyas - the wolf guy…pretty sure he was with Perrin and Egewene pre-tinkers
Byle Doman - the guy who owns the boat taking rand and matt to whitebridge; more signifcant character in book2, and maybe this hasn’t happened yet plotwise?
I figured all of them will be coming in future episodes. I had thought of the first 2, forgot about the third though.
Done.
Let’s say spoilers for released episodes are fair game. Is there anyone who hasn’t read the books that’s watching? We may want to try not to spoil important plot points from the books.
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Agree with this. Many of them may not even turn out to be true for the series anyway.
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I’ve read the first book and some of the second, but I don’t mind seeing spoilers at all.
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I understand that one of the changes made for the nature of TV/streaming series is that they didn’t want to do initial introductions of characters, and then not have them reappear/become relevant until later in the series. Confusing to folks new to the series, and a pain for scheduling/securing actors to play those roles.
Min and Elayne didn’t make the cut for Season 1, but have been cast and are filming for Season 2. I don’t think there’s been anything definitive announced about Elyas or Bayle.
Sanderson made a few comments on Reddit regarding feedback from the first three episodes. Apparently the increased presence of the Aes Sedai in the series is because they are such bit players (aside from Moiraine) in Book One…but the showrunners didn’t think it would make sense to newbies for them to not be better explained early on. Besides, the first book (or at least the first two-thirds of the first book) does feel somewhat derivative of LOTR; it’s only when the Aes Sedai really come into play in Book Two does the WOT world become really distinctive.
One additional bit of trivia – some of the pacing issues apparently arise from the original plans for the first episode to be two hours long, and for the season to span ten episodes. When Amazon constrained them to eight one-hour episodes…
I’ve read the series twice, and forgotten them twice, and would love book spoilers!
This all makes plenty of sense. Interesting that we will meet neither Min, Elayne, nor Aviendha in the first season. (Aviendha obvs, but still interesting given their connection). Finally started book 8 over Thanksgiving after a couple months since book 7.
Ep.4 was good! Established some important relationships/subplots. The effects for the battle scenes were better than I anticipated. Nynaeve did Nynaeve things, and then left us on a cliff for what just happened and what’s next, so good job by the writers I guess.
My brother was in town for the holiday. We’ve both read the entire series and watched everything so we talked a lot about it. At first he was pretty down on it, but after talking things through I got him to at least think it was bearable. He’s not happy about the changes from the books. I’m fine with the changes from the books.
Ep4 about Nynaeve
Neither of us were super happy about Nynaeve just healing everyone (made me think of a D&D group heal spell) at the end of episode 4. That’s not how Nynaeve worked. He was upset because if she is so powerful, there’s no way the other Aes Sedai will let them leave. I pointed out that they could still meet up with Rand/Matt and Perrin/Egwene without leaving their group. We’ll see what happens.
My brother did admit that (ignoring the books), the episodes are getting better. Better pacing, etc.