Done with The Wheel of Time (Serious Spoilers)

 I mentioned that I wasn't thrilled with the initial episodes.  I watched the first four, however, and there are just so many serious issues with the story line that, when combined with the meaningless changes that didn't add to the story at all, that I just can't be bothered.  I won't watch more.  Here are the details:

SPOILER ALERT

Major Plot Problem (and by major I mean catastrophic):

I mentioned this before but women could be the Dragon Reborn in this version.  Can't happen.  Not because women are inferior or because it is a story about men but because the whole premise of the story is "two types of power, women and men".  The men's half is tainted from when the Dark One was sealed up in his prison.  The men who were left went insane and broke the world.  The women are still around three thousand years later doing their thing, part of which is to stop any more men who can use the power before they go insane and break the world again.  Men and women MUST work together however, to stop the Dark One when he eventually does get out of his prison.  IT'S THE WHOLE POINT OF THE STORY.

Minor Plot Problems (and I use the word minor advisedly.  Some of these are major, just not central to the story)

1. Perrin is married and kills his wife accidentally during a trolloc attack on the village.  Why?  Serves no purpose and doesn't advance the storyline.

2. Mat is a thief and his parents (at least his father is) are abusive neglectful alcoholics.  Why?  Changes the character completely.  In the book he is a good kid from a good family with a serious sense of mischief.  Serves no purpose and doesn't advance the storyline.

3. Nynaeve is captured by the trollocs, escapes, and then follows the party. Why?  In the book she follows the party because she feels that they need her help to avoid being used by the "witches" of Tar Valon, the Aes Sedai.  What purpose did the capture serve?  None and it didn't advance the storyline.  Why wouldn't she just go back to the village?  Unless, of course her motivation is the same as in the books, in which case the capture and escape serves no purpose.  

4. The party joins with a group of Aes Sedai who have captured a "false Dragon", one of the men who can channel.  Why? In the book they don't.  In the book they are off doing other things.  Apparently the only purpose this serves is to allow Nynaeve to do something that is well beyond her (or anyone else's) power namely...

4.  It takes training and hard work to learn to control the power.  Throughout the first and second books both Egwene and Nynaeve are being trained.  It is a long and difficult process.  My recollection of the long term story is that it is multiple books spanning two years, during which time they are constantly studying and growing more powerful.  Apparently not in the TV show, however.  Nynaeve somehow manages to heal everyone in the room plus re-confine the bad guy plus do something completely impossible namely ...

5. There are limits to the power.  For example we learn multiple times that "death cannot be healed".  Aes Sedai and Rand (the male lead) alike do not have that power.  And yet we see Lan Mandragoran lying dead on the floor and somehow she heals him in a burst of power the like of which no one has ever seen.  

Girl power, apparently.  Much like in the recent Star Wars debacle, things that took years of study and hard work in the original took minutes for the rebooted female star to master.  And it's not like we needed it.  The female characters in the books are strong and powerful.  Good or evil, they exist on their own terms.  So why change it?  I don't know and I guess now I won't find out.

What else.  Lots really. Many of the things that bugged me are just picking and choosing bits of the story to make it more exciting.  Why show the trollocs invading the village other than to blow a chunk of your budget on special effects?  In the books Rand arrives back at the village and it is partially burned and there are dead and wounded villagers and trollocs.  Guess what, the part that is burned is central to the story and you learn more about what is going on.   Instead we get lousy special effects and no storyline advancement.

Or picking and choosing bits  to make it go faster although I'm not really too sure why there either. There are fourteen books and we are in season 1, episode 4.  Seems like they have plenty of time to get everything done.  

Some of the character choices just seem odd.  Some changes which directly contradict the book (Lan and Moiraine bathing together?) seem to serve no purpose other than to perhaps show how enlightened this society is, without all the oppressive sexual mores.  

I was still curious after the first two or three episodes as to how the story would play out but now, well now I've just lost interest.  When some screenwriter thinks he can do a better job of writing than one of the preeminent fantasy authors of our time, I think I can find more productive things to do.

Like read the books again.  That will fill some of my days.  If you want to give them a try, here's the first three for about $20.  Hopefully they haven't edited them to follow the TV series better.  And no, I don't earn a commission.

Wheel of Time, Vol 1 - 3