ShadowenSnores in the morningLoserdomRegistered Userregular
Several years ago I was reading through Wheel of Time and I was like "yeah this is consistently good to great." Then one day, shortly after finishing Winter's Heart (book 9), I found a hardcover of Crossroads of Twilight (10) in a bookstore on clearance. $5? For a hardcover that was the next in a series I was reading? Yes please.
I don't know how far I got but I do know it was significantly less than halfway, and that I bounced right off and never went back to it. My Wheel of Time adventure ended there. It was probably the first time I'd gotten so far into a series and then just quit. (For reference, I finished the fucking Sword of Truth series, even though I actively disliked the final books.)
Wheel of Time is good fantasy. It was my first major series (after Redwall, as a kid) and i very much fell in love with it. The things people say about it going on too long are true, things get rough and sloggy around book 8 or so, but they finish up quite well when Sanderson takes over. WoT does "chills" moments as well as anyone, and there are usually several per book. However, the way Jordan writes about, and seems to think about is (to put it charitably) pretty bizarre. Also, lots of braid tugging and skirt smoothing for my real ones.
The show thats coming out could be good or could be trash. It looks like they hired a bunch of models, which is never a bad sign. It wont have the built in shocking moments of Martin though, the events can be dark, but the tone of the series mostly was not, and it follows faithfully in a tropey fantasy tradition. I think its success or failure will be in the cast, and whether or not they can translate those "chills" moments. (Oddly, i most thought GoT, even in its best seasonsn kind of failed at that. A lot of my favorite scenes fell sort of flat, and they missed what made it cool, or they did something awkward or cringe to not fully deliver. Think of Red Wedding and how Cat dies, just kind of weird and awkward).
I'm cautiously optimistic about the Wheel of Time show. The most promising sign is that the showrunner wants to frontload the things that make the series stand out from other epic fantasy. He also seems to understand the concept of themes, which is a plus.
That said, I'm not sure if it would be able to capture the same audience as Game of Thrones. What the two series have in common—being political thrillers, deconstructing chosen one tropes—aren't necessarily the things that made Thrones popular, like shocking twists and brutality.
I'm cautiously optimistic about the Wheel of Time show. The most promising sign is that the showrunner wants to frontload the things that make the series stand out from other epic fantasy. He also seems to understand the concept of themes, which is a plus.
That said, I'm not sure if it would be able to capture the same audience as Game of Thrones. What the two series have in common—being political thrillers, deconstructing chosen one tropes—aren't necessarily the things that made Thrones popular, like shocking twists and brutality.
Then again, you can add softcore porn scenes to anything.
The shocking twists, sex and brutality weren't all that made GoT popular: the characters and the "epicness" of the story were also important. There's plenty of TV with sex, twists and brutality and it generally goes unremarked.
I'm cautiously optimistic about the Wheel of Time show. The most promising sign is that the showrunner wants to frontload the things that make the series stand out from other epic fantasy. He also seems to understand the concept of themes, which is a plus.
That said, I'm not sure if it would be able to capture the same audience as Game of Thrones. What the two series have in common—being political thrillers, deconstructing chosen one tropes—aren't necessarily the things that made Thrones popular, like shocking twists and brutality.
Then again, you can add softcore porn scenes to anything.
Are there any prequels in tv or movies that are well received?
I was having this conversation with a friend.
We couldn't come up with one.
... Checking out a google search, not a lot that I'm familiar with, but Hannibal and Fear The Walking Dead are two I've heard people speak of non-negatively when compared to the source material.
I wouldn't really define Hannibal as a prequel, since it is a pretty different take on the character, books and films, freely rewriting and remixing the preexisting material. If anything, it's more of a reboot, though I think it's better described as simply doing its own thing, though with awareness of other books and films about the characters.
Arguably, The Godfather Part II has some prequelly elements (the Vito Corleone storyline), and the recent Planet of the Apes trilogy could also be read as prequels, though they too have reboot elements.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
The shocking twists, sex and brutality weren't all that made GoT popular: the characters and the "epicness" of the story were also important. There's plenty of TV with sex, twists and brutality and it generally goes unremarked.
And if the show is anything to go by the series more or less ran out of shocking twists by the end of book 3
Several years ago I was reading through Wheel of Time and I was like "yeah this is consistently good to great." Then one day, shortly after finishing Winter's Heart (book 9), I found a hardcover of Crossroads of Twilight (10) in a bookstore on clearance. $5? For a hardcover that was the next in a series I was reading? Yes please.
I don't know how far I got but I do know it was significantly less than halfway, and that I bounced right off and never went back to it. My Wheel of Time adventure ended there. It was probably the first time I'd gotten so far into a series and then just quit. (For reference, I finished the fucking Sword of Truth series, even though I actively disliked the final books.)
I kind of petered out on the Malazan books on book 9. Ended up just reading summaries of the ending
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MonwynApathy's a tragedy, and boredom is a crime.A little bit of everything, all of the time.Registered Userregular
The shocking twists, sex and brutality weren't all that made GoT popular: the characters and the "epicness" of the story were also important. There's plenty of TV with sex, twists and brutality and it generally goes unremarked.
And if the show is anything to go by the series more or less ran out of shocking twists by the end of book 3
They didn't, D&D just ignored 3/4 of the material in the fourth and fifth books because they didn't understand it.
The shocking twists, sex and brutality weren't all that made GoT popular: the characters and the "epicness" of the story were also important. There's plenty of TV with sex, twists and brutality and it generally goes unremarked.
And if the show is anything to go by the series more or less ran out of shocking twists by the end of book 3
They didn't, D&D just ignored 3/4 of the material in the fourth and fifth books because they didn't understand it.
Also huge shocking twists were never really the point of ASOIAF. It's not a series designed around making the next twist the most shocking ever.
The shocking twists, sex and brutality weren't all that made GoT popular: the characters and the "epicness" of the story were also important. There's plenty of TV with sex, twists and brutality and it generally goes unremarked.
And if the show is anything to go by the series more or less ran out of shocking twists by the end of book 3
They didn't, D&D just ignored 3/4 of the material in the fourth and fifth books because they didn't understand it.
Also huge shocking twists were never really the point of ASOIAF. It's not a series designed around making the next twist the most shocking ever.
In fact, some of the best parts of ASoIaF are being able to see what's going to happen and watching it actually happen for plausible, grounded reasons without some kind of deus ex save to prevent it.
The shocking twists, sex and brutality weren't all that made GoT popular: the characters and the "epicness" of the story were also important. There's plenty of TV with sex, twists and brutality and it generally goes unremarked.
And if the show is anything to go by the series more or less ran out of shocking twists by the end of book 3
They didn't, D&D just ignored 3/4 of the material in the fourth and fifth books because they didn't understand it.
Also huge shocking twists were never really the point of ASOIAF. It's not a series designed around making the next twist the most shocking ever.
What set ASOIAF apart from other fantasy became clearer to me as the show (and time) progressed and Martin started writing supplementary material: subverting genre expectations (to a limited extent) and providing multiple thought-out perspectives on the world’s events (the absence of which is why I just can’t be bothered to plow through his Targaryen history stuff).
The former has lost some impact as genre conventions have changed, partly in response to ASOIAF, and the latter is something the show never had a good grasp on. There’s some good character bits in the early seasons that weren’t from the books, but for the most part it increasingly became a show about plot instead of characters.
I’m skeptical that a show focused so narrowly on Targaryens will be able to capture the latter, and the aesthetic choice to just chase after that Game of Thrones audience leads me to think HBO’s not planning on doing anything outside of GoT’s own conventions.
It might be good, but it’s not going to do so by capturing what made the book and early show so captivating.
+1
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ShadowenSnores in the morningLoserdomRegistered Userregular
There was really only the two, Ned's loss of head and the Wedding that was Red--and even then, the more shocking of those two in terms of outcome, the Red Wedding, was all but sent to readers by courier beforehand--it was shocking in scale, not in that it happened. Ned's death was more surprising, because it was the warning to the reader: "just because someone is a long-term viewpoint character doesn't mean they can do stupid shit and not die." (You could make an argument for the Purple Wedding, but given who Joffrey was surrounded by it should not have been a surprise that one of them iced him.)
In Song of Ice and Fire, Martin likes foreshadowing, as well as following actions to their inevitable conclusion, with very little saving the day at the last moment. But as one commentator I read noted, if the early seasons of Game of Thrones had been adapted by the Benioff and Weiss writing season 7 and 8, Syrio would have come out of the crowd to save Ned in season 1.
Ned's death isn't actually that shocking in hindsight. It both makes the most sense from a plot and character perspective. Ned's entire arc is written as a tragedy where plot armour doesn't come out of nowhere and save him.
But also and more importantly it's obvious from a genre convention perspective. The trick AGOT plays is not killing Ned off, it's tricking you into not noticing that Ned is not Luke, he's Obi-Wan. He's the father/mentor figure to a diverse group of youngins who all have special wolf companions and distinct strengths and weaknesses with obvious character paths lying ahead. Of course that motherfucker was gonna die.
I'll give the new show a fair shot. I like Matt Smith and there aren't so many high-budget fantasy TV series lying around that I'm bored of them yet. I'm not especially interested in the premise but I was pretty well over the ASoIaF books by the time the GoT series started as well, so I figure it can succeed or fail on its own merits.
I would argue a lot of the complaints about Wheel of Time were also from before it was finished. Books 9 and 10 were very long books where very, very little happened. So when 2 or 3 years went by between each of them, it was frustrating to wait for something legitimate to occur and the books move on. But with all the books available now, it doesn't feel nearly as bad to read them. Honestly, it feels like watching a show week to week versus binging that show. Lulls and dumb crap feels way less terrible when you don't have to wait for the next installment. Also book 10 was by far the worst of the series. I think it's 1000 pages and it takes place over less than 2 weeks.
I would argue a lot of the complaints about Wheel of Time were also from before it was finished. Books 9 and 10 were very long books where very, very little happened. So when 2 or 3 years went by between each of them, it was frustrating to wait for something legitimate to occur and the books move on. But with all the books available now, it doesn't feel nearly as bad to read them. Honestly, it feels like watching a show week to week versus binging that show. Lulls and dumb crap feels way less terrible when you don't have to wait for the next installment. Also book 10 was by far the worst of the series. I think it's 1000 pages and it takes place over less than 2 weeks.
In comparison, it's almost hillarious how much effort book 11 puts into trying to get things wrapped up, and how small of a dent it makes in the plot thread backlog even then.
I never did get around to reading the final three books, though.
I would argue a lot of the complaints about Wheel of Time were also from before it was finished. Books 9 and 10 were very long books where very, very little happened. So when 2 or 3 years went by between each of them, it was frustrating to wait for something legitimate to occur and the books move on. But with all the books available now, it doesn't feel nearly as bad to read them. Honestly, it feels like watching a show week to week versus binging that show. Lulls and dumb crap feels way less terrible when you don't have to wait for the next installment. Also book 10 was by far the worst of the series. I think it's 1000 pages and it takes place over less than 2 weeks.
The books actually start getting noticeably shorter around what a lot of people view as the lull in the centre of the series. I think a big part of it is a commitment to releasing what you have vaguely frequently rather then delaying.
In the many years since then I think there's reason to appreciate that trade-off.
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I don't know how far I got but I do know it was significantly less than halfway, and that I bounced right off and never went back to it. My Wheel of Time adventure ended there. It was probably the first time I'd gotten so far into a series and then just quit. (For reference, I finished the fucking Sword of Truth series, even though I actively disliked the final books.)
The show thats coming out could be good or could be trash. It looks like they hired a bunch of models, which is never a bad sign. It wont have the built in shocking moments of Martin though, the events can be dark, but the tone of the series mostly was not, and it follows faithfully in a tropey fantasy tradition. I think its success or failure will be in the cast, and whether or not they can translate those "chills" moments. (Oddly, i most thought GoT, even in its best seasonsn kind of failed at that. A lot of my favorite scenes fell sort of flat, and they missed what made it cool, or they did something awkward or cringe to not fully deliver. Think of Red Wedding and how Cat dies, just kind of weird and awkward).
That said, I'm not sure if it would be able to capture the same audience as Game of Thrones. What the two series have in common—being political thrillers, deconstructing chosen one tropes—aren't necessarily the things that made Thrones popular, like shocking twists and brutality.
Then again, you can add softcore porn scenes to anything.
I mean Rand and his harem are right there.
Arguably, The Godfather Part II has some prequelly elements (the Vito Corleone storyline), and the recent Planet of the Apes trilogy could also be read as prequels, though they too have reboot elements.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
And if the show is anything to go by the series more or less ran out of shocking twists by the end of book 3
I kind of petered out on the Malazan books on book 9. Ended up just reading summaries of the ending
They didn't, D&D just ignored 3/4 of the material in the fourth and fifth books because they didn't understand it.
Also huge shocking twists were never really the point of ASOIAF. It's not a series designed around making the next twist the most shocking ever.
In fact, some of the best parts of ASoIaF are being able to see what's going to happen and watching it actually happen for plausible, grounded reasons without some kind of deus ex save to prevent it.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
What set ASOIAF apart from other fantasy became clearer to me as the show (and time) progressed and Martin started writing supplementary material: subverting genre expectations (to a limited extent) and providing multiple thought-out perspectives on the world’s events (the absence of which is why I just can’t be bothered to plow through his Targaryen history stuff).
The former has lost some impact as genre conventions have changed, partly in response to ASOIAF, and the latter is something the show never had a good grasp on. There’s some good character bits in the early seasons that weren’t from the books, but for the most part it increasingly became a show about plot instead of characters.
I’m skeptical that a show focused so narrowly on Targaryens will be able to capture the latter, and the aesthetic choice to just chase after that Game of Thrones audience leads me to think HBO’s not planning on doing anything outside of GoT’s own conventions.
It might be good, but it’s not going to do so by capturing what made the book and early show so captivating.
In Song of Ice and Fire, Martin likes foreshadowing, as well as following actions to their inevitable conclusion, with very little saving the day at the last moment. But as one commentator I read noted, if the early seasons of Game of Thrones had been adapted by the Benioff and Weiss writing season 7 and 8, Syrio would have come out of the crowd to save Ned in season 1.
But also and more importantly it's obvious from a genre convention perspective. The trick AGOT plays is not killing Ned off, it's tricking you into not noticing that Ned is not Luke, he's Obi-Wan. He's the father/mentor figure to a diverse group of youngins who all have special wolf companions and distinct strengths and weaknesses with obvious character paths lying ahead. Of course that motherfucker was gonna die.
In comparison, it's almost hillarious how much effort book 11 puts into trying to get things wrapped up, and how small of a dent it makes in the plot thread backlog even then.
I never did get around to reading the final three books, though.
The books actually start getting noticeably shorter around what a lot of people view as the lull in the centre of the series. I think a big part of it is a commitment to releasing what you have vaguely frequently rather then delaying.
In the many years since then I think there's reason to appreciate that trade-off.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
Except he didn't say that.
In the video it's "In book Mountain big. In show Mountain... big."
Asinine Youtube previews strike again.