An Enemy Spy Reads The Wheel of Time III: Something's Fishy in the White Tower

[lord_khaine]

The ending we already got was basically the abridged ending. I don't mind if they have to change some things to make it work because honestly the end wasn't that great anyway. Sanderson took a LOT of liberties with the characters and setting. I'm not saying he didn't do his best, and I know it was a lot to ask, but the end could certainly have been better.

Well when looking at the previous 3 books Sanderson didnt write, then i think the end could also have been a lot worse.

As for the serie. Yeah. When looking at the basic story its honestly not that convoluted.
If you trim away some of the needless side plots. As well as

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Elayne's baths

Then i think it can be done in a reasonable time.

[Anteros]

Well when looking at the previous 3 books Sanderson didnt write, then i think the end could also have been a lot worse.

As for the serie. Yeah. When looking at the basic story its honestly not that convoluted.
If you trim away some of the needless side plots. As well as

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Elayne's baths

Then i think it can be done in a reasonable time.

Jordan would have drug it out a lot more, but it would have been more consistent with the rest of the story and made more sense. Whether that's better or worse is down to personal taste I guess.

Anyway, I'm sure Sanderson did the best he could . It's a lot to ask to close out a series like WoT and he did as much as anyone could ask I suppose.

[Seerow]

The ending we already got was basically the abridged ending. I don't mind if they have to change some things to make it work because honestly the end wasn't that great anyway. Sanderson took a LOT of liberties with the characters and setting. I'm not saying he didn't do his best, and I know it was a lot to ask, but the end could certainly have been better.

Jordan planned to do the last three books as a single book. Sanderson looked at the notes and said that's not possible. There's plenty of room for complaints about Sanderson's finish, but it being abridged is not one I think can be levelled against it fairly.

[lord_khaine]

Jordan planned to do the last three books as a single book. Sanderson looked at the notes and said that's not possible. There's plenty of room for complaints about Sanderson's finish, but it being abridged is not one I think can be levelled against it fairly.

I think it says more about how much better Sanderson is at pacing.
Since.. i mean.. originally WoT were meant as a trillogy.. :P

[InvisibleBison]

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Elayne's baths

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Not this nonsense again. Throughout the entire series, Elayne is shown taking a grand total of ONE bath, and even that is only depicted during the section that depicts everything Elayne does during one day. I don't know why people think there's this vast Elayne bathing subplot, but there really isn't.

[dps]

Jordan planned to do the last three books as a single book. Sanderson looked at the notes and said that's not possible. There's plenty of room for complaints about Sanderson's finish, but it being abridged is not one I think can be levelled against it fairly.

Were Jordan still alive, I suspect we'd have had an addition 3 or 4 books by now, without having and ending yet. And no, I'm not being facetious. And I'm not sure that would be a bad thing.

[Rodin]

Were Jordan still alive, I suspect we'd have had an addition 3 or 4 books by now, without having and ending yet. And no, I'm not being facetious. And I'm not sure that would be a bad thing.

I doubt it, if only because he wouldn't have had an audience paying him to write them any more by that point. Stories need to end.

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If you look at the pacing of the series, Sanderson actually de-abridged the last book. The pacing is going well up until about Lord of Chaos, slows down to a crawl in Crown of Swords, and then just stops entirely for the next two books. We then get Crossroads of Twilight, where Jordan tries to tie up as many plot threads as humanly possible in a single book. I'm not sure if this was under publisher pressure or whether it was because he knew he was sick, but the pace goes from Turtle to African Swallow.

There's just a handful of actually important events in books 7, 8, and 9. These should have been merged into a single book, moving book 10 forward and allowing the events of that to be decompressed and thus allowing the final books to be told at a reasonable pace.

The books prior to Crossroads of Twilight were already getting bad reviews. I can only imagine how much worse they would have been if he had continued to drag his feet.

[Anteros]

That's all true, but if you look at his last 2 books Jordan was actually wrapping up a lot of plot threads and the pacing was improving. He certainly wouldn't have finished things in one book barring some sort of bizarre twist, but 3 or 4 books seems reasonable.

[snowblizz]

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Not this nonsense again. Throughout the entire series, Elayne is shown taking a grand total of ONE bath, and even that is only depicted during the section that depicts everything Elayne does during one day. I don't know why people think there's this vast Elayne bathing subplot, but there really isn't.

Shhh! Don't tell the producers that. You *know* that's the only reason this show was greenlit.

[Anteros]

I know you're kidding, but I'm pretty sure the reason the show was greenlit was because this series has always been compared to GoT and how successful that show was. They were the biggest two names in fantasy books for years. At least in ones marketed towards a more adult audience.

Unfortunately, I don't think that WoT has enough of the sex, death, and violence that gave GoT enough shock value to make it mainstream. It's much more traditional fantasy fare.

[Gnoman]

Fortunately, GoT's breakout succcess means that a fantasy story doesn't necessarily need excessive nudity and violence to gain a mainstream audience - the later seasons of GoT toned down the gratuitous nudity quite a bit.

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Besides, there's a ton of in-book nudity that the writers could tap if they think they need it, and the potential gore level is probably higher than GoT.

[Seppl]

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Besides, there's a ton of in-book nudity that the writers could tap if they think they need it, and the potential gore level is probably higher than GoT.

(Why is that a spoiler?) True, but would you be looking forward to an adaptation like that? I can see it being successful but I do not think traditional WoT fans would like that. I would like to see a faithful adaptation but I am expecting a GoT'ified dark and gritty version for the sake of mainstream appeal (which would, sadly, be the correct call on the part of the producers because they are in it to make money not to satisfy the hardcore fanbase).

[Traab]

Im pretty sure

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the scene where the ashaman show up for the first time to rescue rand in I think, book 6, and proceed to fire mulch everything in sight will outgore all of GoT combined. Like, the entire point of them attacking the way they did was specifically to show off just how deadly dangerous these guys are and they made that very clear in their demonstration. And there are a LOT of battles, both against fellow humans and trollocs and such. So the series can easily be hyper violent without leaving the source material behind. As for nudity, as has been said, there are numerous scenes where the ladies especially are naked or near naked. Not a ton of sex, off hand the only one I can remember was rand chasing after avindha or however her name is spelled, she somehow opens a portal to a snowy wasteland, he follows, builds an igloo, she gives up and sleeps with him. So while there would be a notable amount of nudity and at least a little sex, I dont think its likely we will see any violent versions of either.

[lord_khaine]

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There is as such also plenty of other people who have sex in the serie.
Perin gets a steady GF quiet early. While Mat gets a lot of different action.

Its actually kinda funny its Rand who is used as example.
Since he gets the least of it

[Traab]

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There is as such also plenty of other people who have sex in the serie.
Perin gets a steady GF quiet early. While Mat gets a lot of different action.

Its actually kinda funny its Rand who is used as example.
Since he gets the least of it

I will be honest, I forgot about matt and perrin, though in my defense I never read the whole series, I THINK I read up to book 8 once, but only was able to reread 4, 5, and 6 on a regular basis.

[monomer]

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There is as such also plenty of other people who have sex in the serie.
Perin gets a steady GF quiet early. While Mat gets a lot of different action.

Its actually kinda funny its Rand who is used as example.
Since he gets the least of it

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While there is plenty of sex and violence in WoT, it is not a gratuitous as in GoT. So while there are plenty of large battles where people die horribly, there is very little gore for the sake of gore.

On the sex side, there is plenty of consensual sex in WoT between people who have genuine affection with each other, while in GoT sex is used as a tool of power over other. The only rapey bits in WoT I can think of is when Tylin used Mat as a toy while everyone else laughed at him, and when Morgase was stuck in the Fortress of Light. There was probably a fair amount of it going around during various sackings, though it was not described vividly like it would be in GoT.

[Seppl]

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Its actually kinda funny its Rand who is used as example.
Since he gets the least of it

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Huh? I always assumed that Min was his goto 'wife'. She was by his side all the time, while his other two girls were out, doing their own things.

[Seerow]

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There is as such also plenty of other people who have sex in the serie.
Perin gets a steady GF quiet early. While Mat gets a lot of different action.

Its actually kinda funny its Rand who is used as example.
Since he gets the least of it

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Matt gets a lot of implied action but on screen he only hooks up with Tylin and Tuon

As an aside, as painful as it was too read the Tylin section of the books, it is a storyline I really hope makes it to the TV show

[lord_khaine]

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Matt gets a lot of implied action

Implied action.. really..?
Like the time there were a darkhound attack, and he was found wearing just his foxhead medallion and spear, together with a Maiden of the spear?
How much more implification do you want?

While there is plenty of sex and violence in WoT, it is not a gratuitous as in GoT. So while there are plenty of large battles where people die horribly, there is very little gore for the sake of gore.

Having just read the books, then i dont there is that much more sex in GoT.
Thats as i understand something they added in the TV serie to sell it to the broader audience.

[Rodin]

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Implied action.. really..?
Like the time there were a darkhound attack, and he was found wearing just his foxhead medallion and spear, together with a Maiden of the spear?
How much more implification do you want?



Having just read the books, then i dont there is that much more sex in GoT.
Thats as i understand something they added in the TV serie to sell it to the broader audience.

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Hmmm, yes and no. They removed some gratuitous sex scenes, like Daenerys getting horny and sleeping with one of her handmaidens, or a scene which depicts the Ironborn making the noble ladies of a castle they conquer serve table naked and then raping them. At the same time, they added a bunch of what came to be known as "sexposition", where people would be in a brothel having discussions. So it's a bit of a wash really. It's also worth noting that they cut down on the nudity a great deal in the later seasons, once they were certain their audience was hooked.

Still, I think Wheel of Time wins on the "casual nudity" front. There are a lot of naked women in that series. Whenever there's any sort of test, the women have to do it naked. A lot of the Aiel dialogue takes place in the steam tents where everybody is naked. Tel'Aran'rhiod has the wonderful "feature" that your clothes vanish if you're not paying attention, or turn transparent if you start thinking sexy thoughts. All the Sea Folk ladies going topless the instant they're out sight of land. There's just a lot of all-around nudity is what I'm saying. Jordan just chose to be a bit more discreet with the actual sexy times.

[Traab]

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Hmmm, yes and no. They removed some gratuitous sex scenes, like Daenerys getting horny and sleeping with one of her handmaidens, or a scene which depicts the Ironborn making the noble ladies of a castle they conquer serve table naked and then raping them. At the same time, they added a bunch of what came to be known as "sexposition", where people would be in a brothel having discussions. So it's a bit of a wash really. It's also worth noting that they cut down on the nudity a great deal in the later seasons, once they were certain their audience was hooked.

Still, I think Wheel of Time wins on the "casual nudity" front. There are a lot of naked women in that series. Whenever there's any sort of test, the women have to do it naked. A lot of the Aiel dialogue takes place in the steam tents where everybody is naked. Tel'Aran'rhiod has the wonderful "feature" that your clothes vanish if you're not paying attention, or turn transparent if you start thinking sexy thoughts. All the Sea Folk ladies going topless the instant they're out sight of land. There's just a lot of all-around nudity is what I'm saying. Jordan just chose to be a bit more discreet with the actual sexy times.

I think the main difference

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is the TYPE of nudity. Like the ironborn scene for example. I dont THINK there are any explicit rapes or sexual assaults in wheel of time. I may be wrong as its been a long time since I read even the books of the series I liked. The closest being that relationship of matts everyone talks about. Plenty of casual, nonsexual, nudity though as you mentioned. I think overall the tone of the sex and nudity is FAR lighter than in GoT which would make a difference all by itself. And much of it could even be ignored. Like the sweat houses wearing breast bands and loincloth wraps and such, same for the various tests. Its not really an integral part of the story like the violent nudity and rape and such was in GoT to establish the type of setting it was and how things worked in universe between men and women.

[Tvtyrant]

I think the main difference

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is the TYPE of nudity. Like the ironborn scene for example. I dont THINK there are any explicit rapes or sexual assaults in wheel of time. I may be wrong as its been a long time since I read even the books of the series I liked. The closest being that relationship of matts everyone talks about. Plenty of casual, nonsexual, nudity though as you mentioned. I think overall the tone of the sex and nudity is FAR lighter than in GoT which would make a difference all by itself. And much of it could even be ignored. Like the sweat houses wearing breast bands and loincloth wraps and such, same for the various tests. Its not really an integral part of the story like the violent nudity and rape and such was in GoT to establish the type of setting it was and how things worked in universe between men and women.

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The only major one I can think of is Shaidar Haran, who tortures Moghedian naked and strips Mesaana when he gets ready to punish her for disobedience. In fact Haran is sent exclusively to punish women, there are some implications there but they aren't elaborated in any form.

[Thomas Cardew]

I think the main difference

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is the TYPE of nudity. Like the ironborn scene for example. I dont THINK there are any explicit rapes or sexual assaults in wheel of time. I may be wrong as its been a long time since I read even the books of the series I liked. The closest being that relationship of matts everyone talks about. Plenty of casual, nonsexual, nudity though as you mentioned. I think overall the tone of the sex and nudity is FAR lighter than in GoT which would make a difference all by itself. And much of it could even be ignored. Like the sweat houses wearing breast bands and loincloth wraps and such, same for the various tests. Its not really an integral part of the story like the violent nudity and rape and such was in GoT to establish the type of setting it was and how things worked in universe between men and women.

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Depends on your value of explicit. PLOD (PlotLine Of Doom) has Galina getting abused by Therava before getting turned into magically enforced sex slave. It also has the whole Faile- Aeil dude I can't remember his name.

Morgasse is also basically or explicitly raped by Valda, I forget which.

There's also Greandel's playthings and Halima's abuse of her black ajah sister.

It's lurking in the background but it's not front and center like GoT. And it mostly happens offscreen with its realities/consequences discussed.

Edit: Oh and Mellar trying to cut out Elayne's babies and rape her. So definitely explicit attempted rape on screen there.

Probably more I'm forgetting, but it's also been awhile since I read any of them.

[Traab]

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Depends on your value of explicit. PLOD (PlotLine Of Doom) has Galina getting abused by Therava before getting turned into magically enforced sex slave. It also has the whole Faile- Aeil dude I can't remember his name.

Morgasse is also basically or explicitly raped by Valda, I forget which.

There's also Greandel's playthings and Halima's abuse of her black ajah sister.

It's lurking in the background but it's not front and center like GoT. And it mostly happens offscreen with its realities/consequences discussed.

Edit: Oh and Mellar trying to cut out Elayne's babies and rape her. So definitely explicit attempted rape on screen there.

Probably more I'm forgetting, but it's also been awhile since I read any of them.

I will be honest, most of those people I dont think I even read about,

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I did forget about greandel though, yeah, thats a bad one. But offhand I have no idea who galina, therava, or mellar are lol. In my defense, this series makes war and peace look like its character light sometimes. Dont feel the need to explain on my account though I will just accept that there was this stuff and withdraw my statement about the tone.

[Ninja_Prawn]

Yeah, I think Thomas has a good list there. It's been a while now since I finished the books, but I remember most of those scenes pretty clearly.

When it comes to opportunities for TV producers to shoehorn in more sexual content though, I'm surprised y'all have missed the obvious

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Lan x Nynaeve ship

that was smouldering away in the background for ages.

To say nothing of Siuan x Moiraine!

[Seerow]

Yeah, I think Thomas has a good list there. It's been a while now since I finished the books, but I remember most of those scenes pretty clearly.

When it comes to opportunities for TV producers to shoehorn in more sexual content though, I'm surprised y'all have missed the obvious

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Lan x Nynaeve ship

that was smouldering away in the background for ages.

To say nothing of Siuan x Moiraine!

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For Lan x Nynaeve, I was pretty confident they never actually had any sexual interactions until they got married. There was a discussion between the super girls implying it after they were married, and Nynaeve's sudden shift in demeanor really seemed like someone who had been sexually frustrated for way too long finally getting some. You could also attribute to her breaking through her block, but I would disagree

[Ninja_Prawn]

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For Lan x Nynaeve, I was pretty confident they never actually had any sexual interactions until they got married. There was a discussion between the super girls implying it after they were married, and Nynaeve's sudden shift in demeanor really seemed like someone who had been sexually frustrated for way too long finally getting some. You could also attribute to her breaking through her block, but I would disagree

I kind of meant more in the sense of, it would be relatively easy to say

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"in this adaptation, they didn't wait until marriage."

As you say, there's a lot of pent-up energy there, and I for one thought they made a really cute couple.

[georgie_leech]

I kind of meant more in the sense of, it would be relatively easy to say

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"in this adaptation, they didn't wait until marriage."

As you say, there's a lot of pent-up energy there, and I for one thought they made a really cute couple.

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Mmmmmmaybe not the best example there, what with A) Lan's obsession with doing with what he sees as his duty is one of the major pillar of his character, and B) the first time they actually have a chance to they get married ASAP without even really understanding the meaning of the ritual they jumped into. Character rejiggering and mucking with the timeline like that seem like the kind of thing that tends to rile up the fanbase.

[Adderbane]

I kind of meant more in the sense of, it would be relatively easy to say

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"in this adaptation, they didn't wait until marriage."

As you say, there's a lot of pent-up energy there, and I for one thought they made a really cute couple.

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There's not much room for Nynaeve/Lan stuff without massively juggling plotlines. They split ways starting at book 4 and the very next time they meet, Nynaeve drags Lan off to be married. They're really only together at long at the Stone and Fal Dara before then (remember, Nynaeve and co leave Falme immediately to get Mat to the Tower). Throughout those whole books Lan is still in "I'm not worthy" mode. That said, I'm hoping they can build up their relationship a bit more clearly in the EotW segment of the show. They are a cute couple, and need proper build up before the payoff.

[lord_khaine]

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Galina getting abused by Therava before getting turned into magically enforced sex slave.

She just seemed like a slave. I dont recall anything sexual in this.

It also has the whole Faile- Aeil dude I can't remember his name.

Was said a few times nothing happend there.

There's also Greandel's playthings

It was newer explicit that she did more than collect them.

Halima's abuse of her black ajah sister.

We dont know if this was sexual abuse or just sadism.